Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert Spits in Taxpayers’ Eye

Mayor Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert is just doing what drunken sailors do best: soaking the taxpayer to pay for all of her idiotic spending decisions over the last 8 years. According to the Lampasas Dispatch, City Council unanimously approved raising the tax RATE from .395218 to a nice round number of .42 – which is an increase in the tax RATE of 6.3%.

That is just the RATE, mind you. Your appraised values are all going to be much higher this year as well. But the pigs in City Hall aren’t happy with that slop. They want more, as always….and Mayor Talbert is happy to oblige. Whether it is creating new positions with huge salaries (Assistant City Manager), wildly over-budget unnecessary vanity projects that STILL aren’t completed (Old City Hall) or just plain old salary increases for completely unnecessary positions (network administrator), Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert has NEVER met a spending increase she didn’t like and she has been an enthusiastic supporter of ALL of those expensive decisions.

But Misti is not alone in her drunken spending. Unfortunately, we also have two public school teachers on City Council. Public school teachers, being government employees themselves, are used to asking for more and more funds every year (they were recently awarded $1.5 million in raises, mind you), never having to operate in a “for profit” environment or run their own business. So to see them vote for much higher taxes and wasteful spending isn’t a huge shock to me.

But that’s not all! According to Finley’s twisted math that only a government worker could understand, some of our government workers are actually UNDERPAID by up to 18.7%!!! Yes, it’s true! Never mind the piles of evidence I present here to the contrary. They are going to increase taxes and spending and salaries anyways – because they know that YOU, the taxpayer, are just a cow to be milked over and over without complaint.

Of course, Misti is doing what all cowards in public office do: blaming the huge increases on a need for more “public safety” areas like police protection and the fire department. Who can argue with that?? It’s all a giant pile of horse shit, of course….and we will get to that in the coming posts.

Perhaps it is time for a recall election to replace Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert? The city of Lampasas has tolerated outrageous waste and incompetence for YEARS now. When will the taxpayer finally say “ENOUGH!!”?

County Commissioners Vote Down TALA Resorts PID

Congratulations to the Lampasas County Commissioners and Judge Hoyer for unanimously voting down the creation of a PID for TALA Resorts. Excellent move by the county.

Commissioner Carroll stated that “we are not in the business of treating water or in the real estate business so there is no need for the county to be involved”. Commissioner Briggs heartily agreed.

The Original Lampasshole also heartily agrees. TALA looks to me like a very shady bunch of wolves. I did a bunch of research on the parties involved in TALA, and they look highly suspect, to say the least.

No way this project goes forward without TALA getting the handout it was looking for. The whole idea of 250 to 300 houses worth $3 million each that rich people will just hop on out to for the weekend in the middle of Hill Country is completely ridiculous. The capper was their pie-in-the-sky bullshit about having a $100,000 telescope and an astronomer on staff. Naturally these clowns dangled the ever-present carrot of “more property taxes for the schools” in front of county officials and taxpayers.

Excellent job by all those involved to tell TALA to take a hike. I suspect the “resort” will not be built and these vultures will cruise to the next town and try their schtick again.

Thank you Commissioner Carroll and Briggs and all the rest. Job well done!

Side-By-Side IT Comparison: How Overpaid Are Monica and Kristy?

I hate to flagellate a deceased equine, but literally every single city or county I look at makes it more and more obvious that our IT Department is FAR larger and more expensive than it has any right to be. Just for kicks, I recently compared the entire COUNTY of Burnet to our little town of Lampasas. Here is what I found:

LAMPASAS

Population 7,800

Area 6.2 square miles

IT staff – 2

IT salary $125,881

IT benefits $55,081

Consulting expense $21,600

TOTAL $202,562

BURNET COUNTY

Population 50,000

Area 1021 square miles

IT staff – 2

IT salary $113,336

IT benefits $43,788

Consulting expense $0

TOTAL $157,124

As you can see, Lampasas spends 29% MORE on salary, benefits and paying for outside consultants.

I have included “consulting” in this comparison because it represents the money we hand to TSM Consulting ($1,800 per month, every month) to be on call to do Kristy’s job for her. That is just the MINIMUM. They actually pay them more when there is actual work to do….but I am being conservative in my comparison.

You may notice the benefits are wildly higher here in Lampasas – something I have railed against for a year now. Here is the breakdown on benefits:

Kristy and Monica: $19,288 for retirement and $25,905 for insurance

Burnet county: $12,520 for retirement and $21,528 for insurance

The annual retirement contribution is FIFTY-FOUR PERCENT HIGHER here in our little town than it is 15 miles down the street. Insurance is TWENTY PERCENT HIGHER.

Yet more proof that our IT Department is over-staffed, over-paid and under worked. I say “under worked” because Monica takes off over TWO MONTHS every year, when you add it all up (as I did).

But that STILL isn’t enough loafing around for our IT Princesses! Oh, no! They want MORE time off, as you can see below:

Ideas For The New Budget – Part II

I have previously cited plenty of examples of waste in the city budget and why I think it happens. What to do about it? Here are a few ideas:

  • Eliminate the Lampasas Economic Development Corp. Mandy Walsh may be the nicest lady on the planet (I do not know her) but she is costing the city over $100,000 per year to go to conventions and attend a monthly LEDC meeting. The LEDC has wasted over a million dollars on the “business park” which is a complete disaster and not a legitimate function of any small government. After eliminating the LEDC, private citizens will still open up Burger Kings, MOJO Coffee shops, antique stores and new hotels and some old businesses will still fail. That is the nature of free-market capitalism. We don’t need a group of 5 or 6 “planners” wasting six figures to do that. The world of Lampasas will keep on spinning after LEDC is gone and the city will save a TON of money.
  • Start looking SERIOUSLY at alternatives to the current health care plan or provider. Lampasas seems to spend around $12,000 to $14,000 PER EMPLOYEE while other cities our size seem to spend more like $7,000 to $8,000 per employee. That is insane. Gary Cox needs to get on the horn to Harker Heights, Crockett, Princeton, Kaufman and other cities and ask their managers how they do it. I saw one city that used a Texas Municipal League program for their health care. Why don’t we? Hell, Kristy and Monica ALONE cost the city $25,905 for insurance (line item 505-5115). A 30% reduction in these costs would bring us in line with other cities our size and save OVER a quarter of a million dollars PER YEAR.
  • PLEASE FORGET about the civic center idea. We don’t need another “Old City Hall” debacle on our hands wasting hundreds of thousands per year in operating costs and interest payments. A cursory Google search shows many cities lose a ton of money on this type of project. The fact that Bruce “Always Wrong” Haywood wants one should be reason enough to bury it forever.

Implementing just these few ideas could easily save the city up to HALF A MILLION PER YEAR. That sounds like a lot, and it is. However, it only represents LESS THAN 2% of our $27,000,000 budget. I know most American families (including me) have had to cut spending at LEAST a few percent when times are tight. Don’t tell me the Lampasas City government can’t do the same and get by with 98.15% of what they spent last year.

I implore City Council to at least consider these proposals. They are all well-researched and well-documented.

Ideas For the New Budget

Government tends to grow and grow, becoming fat and bloated, because there is no profit motive, no competition and they have a monopoly on force (i.e. if you don’t pay the ludicrous sums demanded, you go to jail or have your house taken away). Most people are extremely busy earning the very money to be grabbed by government boobs and don’t have the time to complain as their taxes inch up relentlessly (or jump dramatically as in the case of this year’s 20% property tax increases)

Eventually you end up with something like the City of Lampasas IT Department (aka the Department of Redundancy Department) which somehow blows over $300,000 per year and employs two unqualified nitwits who then hire TSM Consulting for more money to do their work for them (and who only work 10 months out of the year for a six-figure salary and benefits).

Or you end up casually paying $125,000 for an elevator for city hall when there is a perfectly good bid for $96,000 sitting on your desk.

Or you piss away nearly $100,000 on an A/V system for city council because you can’t be bothered to go out an bid the project competitively.

Or you blow a million dollars running electricity and water/sewer to a “business park” which was a moronic idea to begin with and which sits there as a 165-acre weed patch….and which I now hear rumblings may be re-purposed to provide “affordable housing” (more on this in the future).

Or you hand Halff Associates a $120,000.00 consulting fee to “plan” the Lampasas economy for you, even thought we ALREADY have a Lampasas Economic Development Corporation spending well over that amount annually.

Or you incinerate $1.5 million remodeling Old City Hall – a project that was originally rejected when it was only $350,000 but somehow grew into a $1,500,000.00 monstrosity.

Or you squander a few hundred thousand dollars on steel paneling and lights for a rodeo arena that was totally unnecessary and which just happened to be championed by a city council member who was a member of the riding club…and which I believe might be used twice a year. If that.

These irresponsible actions are the actions of a government which has WAY too much money rolling in and clearly doesn’t value it. They have enjoyed the fruits of a supposed ten-year “booming economy”, and have become very accustomed to throwing money down the toilet without a second thought.

Well, trees don’t grow to the sky and all good things come to an end. Very likely, we will experience a recession soon and these idiots will be staring at a giant six-figure hole in their budget. Which they will then plug not by lowering salaries, benefits or spending, but by jacking up your taxes and utility rates as they always do.

SO – maybe City Council should be proactive for once and cut the copious amounts of fat NOW….THIS YEAR, so they are prepared when the downturn inevitably arrives. Sounds crazy, right?? My next post will provide lots of quick and easy ways to slash spending and shrink the bloated and wasteful city government.

Old City Hall STILL Not Complete???

I’m no detective, but the complete and utter lack of crowing about the new $1.5 million City Hall renovation and its nearly $100,000 A/V system for the last 4 months tells me this thing STILL isn’t done yet!

Remember back in mid-March when Finley informed us there would be a two-week delay on the elevator? That was a mere two weeks AFTER he told us it would be all done in a week or two.

Well, here we are FOUR MONTHS LATER…and I have STILL not seen any huge puff piece in the Lampasas Dispatch crowing about the $1.5 million dollar monstrosity. What’s the hold up? Is the elevator STILL not installed?

I find it impossible to believe that when this vanity project is done, Finley won’t invite the Lampasas Dispatch in for a photo shoot and make a BIG announcement for all of us peons to come to the next City Council meeting and grunt our approval. The wretched masses can “oooohhhh” and “ahhhhhh” and stroke the FOUR expensive 70-inch TV sets and the $5,000 DVR box like primitive monkeys stroking the giant black monolith in “2001 – A Space Odyssey“.

Yes, that is how I imagine they see us.

I mean, Monica Can’t-Wright even went out and bought 100 stackable chairs (four years ago) for this momentous occasion! This is the VERY DEFINITION of the community event Finley claims the $1.5 million debacle was built for! Yet we haven’t heard a peep in the newspaper and I haven’t seen a SINGLE mention in the council minutes – which I watch like a hawk.

I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the big pile of shit that has been sitting on the west side of the building for the last 6 months – which looks suspiciously like a disassembled $125,000 elevator to my untrained eyes.

As you may recall, former genius council member Chris Harrison thought the city should ignore the cheapest $96,000 bid for the elevator from Austin Elevators and instead go with the $125,000 elevator from RKJ Construction. He wanted to “keep it local” – which are apparently government code words for “get bent over and screwed hard”.

Again, this is all speculation on my part. If any of my usual City Hall birdies wish to chirp about this issue, you know where to find me.

Lampasas County Appraisal District Gets 4% Raise…After 11% Raise Last Year.

In a totally expected move, the Lampasas County Appraisal District Commissioner’s Court voted 4-1 to approve their new budget – which includes a 4% increase in salaries. Kudos to Mark Rainwater for voting against this nonsense and pointing out that LAST YEAR they raised the salaries 11%. Must be nice to get a 15% raise in two years. In my 35 years of working, I’m pretty sure that has never happened to me….because I’m a sap who has always worked in the private sector instead of having my lips clamped on the government titty.

Naturally they trotted out the tired old tripe about needing to overpay everyone so they don’t leave for greener pastures. It is an argument only a government official could believe. In the real world, if you post a “help wanted” ad and you get a LOT of people applying (like the LCAD recently did (5 resumes) and like the city of Lampasas did (54 resumes) when they created the Assistant City Manager position) that means your offered salary (AND BENEFITS) are plenty generous. It doesn’t matter what Austin or Dallas are doing down the road.

Comparing salaries to Austin or Round Rock or Georgetown is an idiotic endeavor. Yes, they might get paid more in those towns, but the cost of living is much higher and there are other negative externalities like traffic, noise and pollution.

Furthermore, you would think the price of “appraising stuff” would go DOWN over time, since these people have access to unprecedented amounts of information very easily now: Zillow, Redfin, drone images, Google Earth and many others have mountains of real-world data on prices that an appraiser from 20 years ago could only dream of.

Once again, the giant claw of government grabs more and more from the citizens. Anyone want to bet on the over/under for next year’s salary increase? I’ll go with over 4% yet again next year.

Marble Falls ALSO Has No IT Department.

Marble Falls – which is right down the street and has a similar population – ALSO has no IT department. According to Kaleb Kraenzel, the Assistant City Manager: “currently, our organization contracts out with a local company for that service”.

That makes TEN cities our size I have checked with and ZERO IT Departments. That’s 0-10 on IT Departments….not a very good batting average, even for government work. The facts look worse for Monica and Kristy every time I get a response from another city manager.

Marble Falls takes in about FIVE TIMES the money we do in sales tax ($150k per month versus $750k), so there is clearly more money sloshing around there….yet STILL no IT department.

I asked Mr Kraenzel how much they spend on their IT contract and am waiting to hear back.

Hell, even Copperas Cove, which is around FIVE TIMES our population, only spends about $380,000 on their IT. Five times larger yet they spend roughly what we do? Very odd.

Clearly, we are overstaffed. I’m going to call the Lampasas IT Department the Department of Redundancy Department from now on. Monica has been feathering her nest for almost 14 years now. Perhaps it is time for a change.

Lampasas City IT Department Should Be Eliminated and Outsourced – May Save the City Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars PER YEAR.

[QUICK synopsis for those of you new to this site: our IT Department consists of TWO people – neither of whom hold basic network certifications from Microsoft or Cisco and who subsequently pay TSM Consulting tens of thousands more per year to do THEIR network jobs for them. Monica Wright was somehow awarded with the sinecure (look it up, Monica) of Director of the IT ‘Department’ 13 years ago and her BFF and underling Kristy Acevedo comprises the rest of the “department”. Their ‘department’ was budgeted THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS this past year…which includes their $181,000 in salary and benefits – see page 24 and 25].

[Monica came to my attention last July when she oversaw the award of a no-bid contract to Azbell Electronics for almost $100,000 for the City Council chambers A/V system (TVs and microphones, essentially). I later discovered City Hall had actually gone out for competitive bid the FIRST time on this and had awarded the contract to Broadcast Works for $34,000. This was then rescinded for reasons unknown and the contract awarded with NO BIDDING to Azbell Electronics, also for reasons unknown].

I have spent the last week going over the city budgets of NINE other random small towns in Texas to see if THEY waste such colossal sums on an IT “department”. They are all very close to us in population size, although some are slightly larger and have a higher per-capita income. I used THIS list to find my candidates.

I have also sent an email (twice) to the manager of all those cities, although some never bothered to answer me. Either way, I looked over their city budget AND their city organizational flow charts looking for “IT Department” or “Technology Department” or something similar.

NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THESE TOWNS HAD AN IT DEPARTMENT OR TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT.

Not only did they not have a DEPARTMENT – they didn’t even have a PERSON. They outsourced their IT to large, expert companies like Barcom, TSM, or Network Plus.

The cities I researched are: Carthage, Gladewater, White Oak, Princeton, Hitchcock, Sanger, Crockett, Kaufman and Silsbee. Results are as follows:

Kaufman city manager Mike Slye told me they have a third-party contract for all IT services. He did not say which company it was.

Hitchcock city administrator Marie Gelles told me they “have a third-party contract with Barcom for IT services“. I requested the amount spent or a link to that department…no answer yet.

Carthage budget, website and organizational chart show no IT Department. I am waiting to hear back from city manager Stephen Williams CPA. They DO, however, have a civic center which ran a $112,000 deficit last year ($147,400 to operate vs $35,000 in revenue). The year before that, it ran a $92,000 deficit. Bruce “The Rascal” Haywood’s micro-penis will probably become fully erect after reading about that kind of reckless and profligate spending.

White Oak city manager Melba Haralson told me “we contract out those services“. Side note – this was one of the more impressive websites I navigated – slick, fast and extremely well laid out. Whoever is in charge of all that is quite a professional…an “anti-Monica”, if you will. Their budget summary and layout is incredible. [Fun fact: their expenditure on city salaries and benefits in the latest budget is $2,374,216 ($1.354 million of that is police). Ours is over $8 million.]

Gladewater apparently has never heard of email. I can’t find a single email for ANY city employees or departments. By far the shittiest and most incomplete of all the websites. In other words – perfect. The city probably spends close to nothing on a site nobody goes to anyways. Brilliant. I’d be shocked if they have a Monica or Kristy type on their payroll milking them dry. Maybe I’ll call them.

Crockett appears to have no IT Department. They are the city I profiled the other day who blow $86,000 per year on a civic center operating deficit. Waiting to hear back from the city administrator John Angerstein (awesome name). [Fun fact: city of Crockett operating budget of $8.1 million….they also spend $3.289 million on personnel – we spend over $8 million]

Princeton Assistant City Manager Lesia Gronemeier told me that “currently we contract this service out and will continue to do so for approximately the next three years“. Their budget shows no sign of an IT or tech department (page 22 organizational chart). Pretty sweet website for this city as well.

Sanger also has a fairly slick website and awesome budget page but appears to have no IT department (page 29 organizational chart). I could not find an email for a city manager or other big wig, so I emailed the city council….waiting to hear back. [Fun fact: very similar in government size to Lampasas with around 100 employees and a $25 million budget – however, “salaries and benefits” total $6.241 million in Sanger (page 49) and over EIGHT MILLION in Lampasas (so we somehow spend about 30% more on salaries and benefits)]

Silsbee city manager DeeAnn Zimmerman was very pleasant to deal with and informed me that “the city of Silsbee uses Network Plus for all of our IT work”….so they have no IT Department.

It is my belief that City Council and the City manager of Lampasas (Finley DeGraffenreid) need to seriously look at this department and decide if TWO full time employees are actually needed. I find it very hard to believe that the tiny town of Lampasas has 80 hours of IT work per week to keep them both occupied all day long. And by “IT work” I mean actual IT work (server migration, installing cabling, troubleshooting)….not Monica running over to the library or golf course to change a printer cartridge. I’m pretty sure every grown adult knows how to do that.

My personal belief is that the second IT position was created because (1) Monica was incapable of doing the work and (2) Monica then gets to be a “director” of this one-woman department – which I assume comes with higher pay and even less work. If the city had hired a competent IT tech to begin with, there would have never been a need for someone else.

It seems to me there are several options, all of which benefit the taxpayer:

  1. Eliminate the entire department and outsource everything. Gary Cox should get on the horn and talk to all these other cities to see if this is feasible. If they can outsource to TSM or Network Plus or Barcom for, say, $120k per year, they are STILL saving $180k per year overall – or $1.8 million over the next ten years. Think of all the roads and water lines that could be properly maintained with that money.
  2. Eliminate the second (redundant) “network administrator” job and give Monica a chance to actually get certified to do real IT work so she never has to call TSM consulting – this would result in TSM’s contract being cancelled – saving tens of thousands per year and also saving around $80,000 more as Acevedo’s redundant job position is eliminated. It would also mean Monica actually has to work full time instead of taking off 8 weeks per year. This would save about $1 million over ten years.
  3. Fire Monica and Kristy both as unqualified, hire some 24-year-old tech nerd right out of school who DOES possess all the normal network qualifications (Cisco or Microsoft) and let him actually do everything the job requires (no more calling TSM and handing them $30,000 a year to solve your problems for you) – a “one man department” who is well-qualified and pay him a decent wage. This eliminates the TSM contract as well as Monica and Kristy’s bloated salaries – or probably around $1.1 million over ten years.

Field Guide to Local Fauna

Boobus Lampasicanus in repose
  • Kingdom: Animalia
  • Phylum: Chordata
  • Class: Mamalia
  • Order: Sirenia
  • Family: Lampasicus ignoramus
  • Genus: Moronicus
  • Top speed: Four miles per hour fully charged
  • Mating patterns: Surely you jest
  • Range and habitat: well-worn path between home and grocery store

Many of you may be joining us from a Facebook mention….and I appreciate whoever drove thousands of viewers to this site, as my primary focus is waste and incompetence in local city government. The more people who read and learn about the shenanigans of local governance the better.

But I also consider this site to be educational. Some of you may also be new to the area, so I thought it would be nice to introduce you to some of the very bizarre creatures you may find roaming this part of Texas.

Above is a photo of a typical Boobus Lampasicanus in his native environment. Note the open mouth. This is the default position for this noisy creature – either for loudly spouting idiotic notions at town hall meetings or ingesting Krab Kingz food truck offerings during feeding hours.

This creature emits a warbling sound when excited…a babbling that sounds a lot like “civic CEN-ter….civic CEN-ter“. If approached, he will warble louder and drown out all other animals in the area. Scientists believe this may be a diversionary tactic. The Boobus may believe that if it repeats its nonsense loudly enough or often enough, others may listen to it and take it seriously.

Although not as intelligent as other domesticated animals like the dog or the pig, he has nonetheless been known to form rudimentary thoughts on Facebook by slapping the keyboard with his flipper-like appendages. His lack of dexterity and smarts leads to bizarre punctuation and random capitalization of letters. Almost as if he were trying to mimic real human thoughts. Like a monkey. Only much bigger.

Zoologist Clinton Hart Merriam has described the Boobus as a “slow-witted beast”.

Conservation: this species of Boobus is listed by the World Conservation Union as LC or “least concern” as the Boobus runs rampant in these parts. There is, unfortunately, no risk of extinction for this meddlesome pest.