Who Has the Answers?

First, it is a great honor for me to serve as a director of the West Texas County Judges and Commissioners Association (WTCJCA). I have served as Precinct 3 commissioner in Wichita County since 1981. It has been my privilege to be a member of the WTCJCA and to have the opportunity to draw on the experience of other members, to develop lasting friendships, and to attend our educational and business conferences. Our counties with varying population sizes comprise a large geographical area of Texas. We face similar problems as can be seen from the resolutions passed at the March conference in Wichita Falls. (See Resolutions, May 2006 issue of County Progress).
Perhaps counties, as an arm of state government, are fortunate to have only the authority to perform the governmental functions that the state passes down through our constitution and laws. I suppose that the greatest problem we face in performing our assigned obligations can be summarized as “limited resources, unlimited responsibility for what is assigned.” Some 10 of the 18 resolutions passed in our last conference touched on this in some manner. I will not dwell at length on these concerns for they are recurring, frequently commented on, and generally denote the tendency of legislative bodies above the local level to pass problems or mandates on without providing sufficient resources. However, I will make a few comments to provoke some thought.
First, who pays for what government provides? John Locke wrote:
Governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit everyone who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent