Montgomery County considers creation of government efficiency task force

Editor's note: This story has been updated to show that Commissioner Robert Walker voted against the proposal rather than for the proposal, meaning the creation of the department failed.

An effort to create a government efficiency task force failed on Feb. 25 in a 3-2 vote by Montgomery County commissioners following concerns regarding the effectiveness and reach of such a department. Precinct 1 Commissioner Robert Walker, Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley and Precinct 3 Commissioner Ritch Wheeler voted against creating the task force.

What you need to know

Precinct 4 Commissioner Matt Gray brought the idea of the task force to commissioners.

"I will be the first to say and commend this county on how conservative [and] how streamlined we are, but we need to look and see where we can find some more savings," Gray said.

Commissioners voiced concerns that the task force could be viewed as "micro management" and questioned how they could ensure the appointed members would have the necessary skills to conduct an internal audit of all county departments.

Under Gray's proposal, his Chief of Staff Joshua Pascua would have led the proposed the task force, and each commissioner's office as well as the county judge could have had a representative on the task force. The first priority of the task force would have been to look at the county purchasing department to see if there is room for financial savings, officials said.

What they're saying

• "We need to start drilling down on this and finding some of those savings and bringing them back to the court and applying it to law enforcement, to infrastructure and to roads," Gray said.
• "My suggestion in that whole deal is, if we're going to utilize this task force, that we would move forward on doing all departments of the county," County Judge Mark Keough said. "Look at everyone, including the elected officials for the preparation for the August budget cycle, which would include all of our departments."
• "I don't see how you can compare Montgomery County to Washington, D.C.," Riley said. "We've got procedures in place with the purchasing department, with a budget officer, with the auditor, with people all over this county checking and double checking what we're spending and how we're spending it."
• "I'm concerned about the committee chair position, and so I'm going to vote no on this, but only because I want to bring it back with more clarity and more definition as to how this committee is set up, and exactly what the structure is and what their mission is," Wheeler said.