I have a soft spot for budget transfers, which I know sounds nerdy. Back when Judge Walter Maynard and also Mike Ford were judges, the details about budget transfers were including in the meeting. That is, and this was before the courtroom display, there would be included, in the agenda, all the details of what was transferred from this account to that account, with the date and, if memory serves, a short explanation of what it was for. That way, not only the commissioners but also the public could know what money was going from one bucket to another and presumably why.

In fact, in 2016, during the time that Andy Lucas and Darrell Best were suing my husband for frivolous reasons, I was at the courthouse recording video. One of the agenda items, with Danny Chambers as judge, was to approve budget transfers. Brian Watts, who was then the county auditor, said they had had to move some money for the county attorney (then Andy Lucas) for outside legal expenses. That caught my attention because I wondered, is Andy Lucas using an outside attorney for that case, thus incurring more expenses for Somervell County taxpayers rather than handing it himself? And yes, that turned out to be the case, as I found out after i did an open records request to Watts. It turned out for that request, that the county paid a law firm $4,634 dollars And that wasn’t the end of it, Lucas continued to rack up bills. (Who paid? You and I and the rest of the county taxpayers)

My point here is to talk about how important it is to be fiscally responsible as a citizen and follow the money. And one way to do that is through budget transfers. Here is the last time I wrote about budget transfers, in 2023

There is something specific i would like to follow right now and, although the agenda item for budget transfers is there, the commissioners court looked like they had none to approve one way or the other for a number of months. The last one I could find whether an approved budget transfer took place was on August 12, 2024 at the regular meeting of Commissioners Court. Here is the example of the signed motion as well as the report that showed the amounts, etc

This, again, is an example of transfers and includes the Budget Adjustment Register. Just like I did, if anyone wants to look at the details of a particular transfer, including receipts, invoices, etc, one can do a public information request to get them. Public information requests can, incidentally, be done by inspecting the records in person rather than getting them send via mail or email, etc.

Because Budget Transfers is on most agendas, in particular the regular meeting, I was looking for ones after August and it didn’t appear that there were any or at least none that were voted on. I asked Michelle Reynolds first since she and the clerk’s office are the ones that put the documents with the agendas after a meeting (might be several days) and I wanted to be sure I was not missing a procedural change. She told me that that she thought the report was now being done on a quarterly basis. I asked why that was and she said to ask Nikki. Since Nikki Weedon is the auditor and is the one who supplies the report, I went to ask her. She said that even if she has budget transfers pending, she doesn’t necessarily process them for an upcoming meeting but might hold the transfer (ie report shows a number of budget transfers that have accumulated.) She said she does not do this report (shown above) on a quarterly basis but thought she would probably do one at the end of the year. I told her I thought that was pretty random. She further said that this report might go away with the new software that has just rolled out. Side note that while we were talking, Kelly, Chamber’s admin, came out to say that she always puts the budget transfers item on the agenda in case there are some. Have asked Weedon what she meant, if the budget transfers will still exist in the new report or appear some other way. Will update when I get a reply

Here is an example of a budget transfer sheet from 2014. Notice that the transfers show the amount and exactly how and where the money want, ie, transfer from this account to that account

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