Being an advocate, a fiduciary, for the taxpayers it serves and rigorously insures their interest comes first, all the time.
As the taxpayer advocate and fiduciary, the ESD Board has one single responsibility:
Utilizing the tax dollars the ESD collects to provide the best fire protection possible with the dollars it has available.
The mechanism for such oversight is best
described as an arms-length relationship between the five-member ESD Board
and either its Fire Chief, if they operate their own fire department or the fire department they contract with for fire fighting services (four (4) ESD's contract with volunteer fire departments: ESD 14-Volente, ESD 10-Ce-Bar, ESD 8- Pedernales, ESD 5- Manchaca,). In either case,
they are responsible for hiring AND firing the Fire Chief or the contract fire department based on their performance and ability to serve the taxpayers efficiently and effectively. When either or both of these performance aspects are not being achieved, it is the ESD Boards responsibility to find the best remedy available to provide its taxpayers with the highest quality emergency services, including, replacing the Fire Chief, replacing the contract fire department, or merging with another ESD.
But in Travis County, not all ESD Board of Commissioners operate from the
noble and honorable side of being the taxpayer’s advocate and fiduciary. Some are nothing more than cronies of the
Fire Chief or the volunteer fire department they contract services with, others lack the type of business and professional experiences essential for this level of oversight responsibility. It is
the proverbial “looking glass” scenario where the board shifts advocacy from
looking out for the best interest of the taxpayer to the classic “rubber stamp”
operation FOR the very management or volunteer organization it is designed to independently oversee on
behalf of those who pay the bills. Its just like sausage, you really don’t
want to know how its made but in emergency services, what you don’t know could
injury, or kill you, your family or your neighbors. 
ESD Boards are appointed by the elected County Commissioners,
specifically by the County Commissioner whose district has the ESD within its
boundaries. The Commissioner submits
their “pick” for ESD Board appointment to the entire Commissioner Court who
routinely extend political courtesy and rubber stamp the recommendation with a
full court vote of approval.
The problem is how the appointee is selected. There is no independent / objective process
that:
- Opens ESD Board appointments up to all qualified taxpayers desiring to be considered for an appointment to their respective ESD Board.
- Standardizes the qualities sought for an ESD Board member (business experience, education, etc.).
- Independently reviews and validates the essential qualifications of a candidate.
- Recommends candidates based on proven qualifications.
Instead each County Commissioner
uses their own selection process for “their” ESD Board appointments and the
results can vary between a reasonably functional and responsible ESD Board to a
Board that rivals "F Troop".
Typically the person is “suggested” by a confidant of the appointing
County Commissioner or an existing ESD Board member, or by a self-serving Fire
Chief seeking to maintain control of his board with “his” people (not all
Chiefs operate from this manipulative position but more than a few do). Other
times, an appointee is selected as a patronage gift to a supporter of the
County Commissioner or, and, this is extremely rare, as a result of a taxpayer
who submits a name for consideration (which is often times laundered through
the existing ESD Board and / or Fire Chief for their “approval”). Its incestuous and counter to even the most
basic of best practices in local government.
Compounding
the appointment problem is the lack of a term limits and the lack of any
standardized training for the new appointee regarding:
o
Primary fiduciary responsibilities to the
taxpayer.
o
The law as it relates to the ESD, including tax
rates, transparency, accountability, etc.
o
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
standards for minimum fire fighting services in the urban/suburban/rural
environments.
o
Importance of continually assessing whether to
merge or contract out fire protection services to maximize taxpayer value and
service quality.
o
The annexation realities for ESD’s that border the
City of Austin.
o
The importance of an arms length relationship
with their Fire Chief.
Adding to these problems yet again are similar challenges
inherent in the organizational culture of each ESD Board (and there are
thirteen (13) ESD Boards in Travis County!).
Similar to the imperfections of the political appointment process;
organizational culture of the ESD Board has a good side and a bad side. A good ESD
board culture provides what Travis County’s appointment process fails to do:
educate the new appointee on his/her core responsibilities and legal/ethical
duties. It is a on-the-job process that introduces the new appointee to the
full scale and scope of his/her duties. They
demonstrate, by their collaborative actions, their fiduciary responsibilities
to the taxpayer; the need to be transparent and accountable to the public, the
importance of “oversight”; keeping a respectful but arms length relationship
with its Fire Chief; thinking strategically beyond its borders and consistently
promoting strong, ethical leadership. In similar fashion a bad ESD Board culture
strives to indoctrinate the appointee to the Board’s preferences for “doing
things”. This culture considers its
primary role as the “supporter” of its
Fire Chief and his agenda, a “rubber stamp” operation that considers the
taxpayer a distant or worse, a non-player in Board decisions, disregards
transparency and accountability, ignores bad management procedures like blatant
nepotism, thinks in the vacuum of its borders and operates as a 17th
century fiefdom.
Lets look at my ESD as a case study of how ESD Board
appointments are done and what happens when the County Commissioners do not
practice due diligence and instead follow the longstanding ritual of political
patronage or worse, expediency for the sake getting the task off the “to do
list”. My ESD is a bit different than
most because it sits in two County Commissioner districts, one on the East and
one on the West. I sent an open records request to the County Commissioner office
who appoints for the western half of the ESD in late August asking for the following
information:
1. Resumes for each ESD 4 Board Member detailing their work
experiences and other expertise that qualifies them to sit on an ESD oversight
board.
2. Document listing each ESD 4 Board Member, date of appointment, who appointed and any training they have acquired to be competent ESD Board Members.
2. Document listing each ESD 4 Board Member, date of appointment, who appointed and any training they have acquired to be competent ESD Board Members.
What I got was nothing other than an email from the
Commissioners aide indicating appointment dates but no formal resumes for their
two appointees, one who is the Board President.
No further explanation was offered on their work experiences and other
expertise that qualified these two gentlemen to sit on the ESD 4 Board nor any
info on their training. I did not ask the other County Commissioner
for similar info because I doubted his reply would be any more informed or detailed. All in all, not very encouraging but it does
lend some light on why Travis County has issues with its ESD’s. It’s
a good old-boy, wink-wink process without any standards, without any objective
/ independent verification of an appointee’s qualifications or even the most
basic of training on ESD responsibilities.
Sometimes the County Commissioner hits it lucky and gets a great
oversight board but as you look at all the 13 ESD Boards you realize a handful
of good boards does not offset a similar handful of not so good ESD Boards. The taxpayers still lose.
This lack of due diligence in appointment and training can
and does create ESD Boards that are unprepared for oversight duties. Examples
of poor oversight include:
An ESD that spends more than its annual tax
revenues. One ESD last year had a
deficit approaching $615,000. Their auditor posted a warning in the annual
audit stating the ESD was in financial peril and will require “very difficult
decisions (involving) response times, locations of stations along with adequate
staffing”.
- ESD Boards (there are at least 5 that do this) knowingly operate fire-fighting operation that lack the staffing and resource capacity to manage basic fire fighting for their district. They offset this lack of capacity by counting on the good will of other adjacent, better staffed, trained and equipped fire departments for “mutual aid”. The Austin Fire Department has spent over $315,000 in city taxpayer funds to support just one of these ESD’s in repeated “mutual aid” calls.
- An ESD Board that allows its Fire Chief to continue to provide a non-essential “training academy” that other agencies already offer in spite of the fact the ESD cannot meet its current fire-fighting mission and is in serious financial distress.
- An ESD Board that knowingly allows its Fire Chief to hire his daughter as the department “medical officer” even though the ESD only has only two engines with 3 fire-fighters each, is in financial distress, relies on the Austin Fire Department to cover three (3) of its five (5) response areas (and does not reimburse AFD for their efforts), and out of a 28 member department pays her the 5th highest salary, just under what their battalion chiefs make and she reports to and is evaluated by her father, the Fire Chief.
- An ESD Board that refuses to consider repeated offers from the Austin Fire Department to open negotiations to take over direct fire services for JUST the ESD’s EXISTING TAX REVENUES even though the change would substantially improve the quality and resource depth of fire response, and reduce homeowner insurance rates because the Austin Fire Department has a lower ISO rating than the ESD’s current in-house fire department.
- ESD Boards that contract with their local volunteer fire department to provide district fire service do not independently verify if the money they pay to these volunteer departments are being appropriately used. Additionally, Travis County has NEVER asked the ESD Boards who contract this way to verify the financial integrity of how public tax money is being spent by the volunteer fire departments. It’s a completely unregulated, unaudited operation.
An ESD Board that approved a $1,000,000 remodel
of an existing fire station with an annual tax revenue stream of little over
$1,000,000 and no financial reserves. An adjacent (and more fiscally responsible) ESD, built a
similar sized station, from the ground up, for only $540,000. The same ESD Board also approved a lease program
for 2 new fire engines and paid their Fire Chief a high five-figure salary to manage one
(1) fire station with one (1) engine and crew, then discovered their
financials were in such distress they were forced to drastically reduce services, eventually were pressured to fire their Chief (even though they approved all the expenditures) and seriously considered
declaring bankruptcy. They remain in deep financial trouble.
- An ESD Board that supported an expenditure for a tricked out rescue vehicle by its contract volunteer fire department, better equipped with advanced rescue tools than most urban professional fire departments, for a coverage area of only 21 square miles, a population of only 14,000, an annual rescue response frequency that can be counted on one or two hands and none of the rescues more challenging than a routine vehicle entrapment. In contrast, the Austin Fire Department has three rescue trucks for an area of 251 square miles and a population of 793,000 and none of their trucks are as well equipped and they handle over 1200 rescues annually. Its also worth noting this ESD contract volunteer fire department routinely relies on the Austin Fire Department to provide mutual aid services on fires it cannot manage and never reimburses the Austin Fire Department for their assistance.
- An ESD Board with serious service delivery problems with its volunteer fire department that refused a management offer (for just the existing ESD tax revenues) by an adjoining, financially stable, and professional managed ESD (with one of the best ESD Boards in Travis County) which would have provided them an experienced Fire Chief (they only have a part-time Chief with no executive management experience, paid a whopping $80,000 annually to supervise one fire station with 2 fire-fighters per day), a Chief Financial Officer (they have no CFO), a 24 hour Battalion Chief (they have none), full time professional fire-fighters (they have volunteers) and lots of supplemental fire fighting resources including auto aid with both the Austin Fire Department AND its immediate neighbor Cedar Park Fire Department (which has a fire station substantially closer to the ESD's largest populated suburb).
Bottom Line: The
Travis County’s ESD Board appointment process is badly broken and works against the
best interest of the taxpayer. But it’s
a symptom of a larger problem; Travis County simply does not need 13 ESD’s,
with 13 Boards, 12 Fire Chiefs, 13 administrative staffs, and 13 different
performance standards. Its time for Travis County to get serious about its
responsibility for county fire services and fix the entire problem.
