I want to say thanks to the citizens of Hopkins County and Precinct #3 for allowing me to have served these past three years as Commissioner of Pct #3. It has been and is an honor to serve with the present Commissioners Court. I look forward to serving the citizens of Hopkins County another term, and would appreciate everyones support from Pct. #3.
As a court we have strived to run the county government with the taxpayer and the future in mind. Many of the decisions made by the court have not been easy. I am proud to be a part of that decision making, and feel that we have made progress in several areas. Over the past three years we have gone out for bids on several of the services used by the county to conduct our business. We have been able to save several thousands of dollars by making changes in the providers of those services. Just to mention a few, when the new jail bonds were passed by the voters, we went out for bids for County Financial Advisor. By changing companies, we were able to save almost one million dollars in interest on the bonds by using the strategy of a new company. We went out for bids for insurance providers for the county this past year. We changed companies and saved the tax payers over one hundred thousand dollars in insurance premiums. We went out for bids for services of collection on delinquent taxes. This created new competition for those services and the present company offered a better deal by lowering their collection percentage rate and also providing more assistance to our tax collectors office.
On the matter of county roads, which is of most importance to our rural residents living on those roads, I being one of them, wish there was enough time in the day and enough money, that everyone could have a smooth road to travel on. We try our hardest, with the resources we have available, to maintain the county roads in good condition. It doesn’t happen. We have been able to procure a couple of grants for our county roads due to damage from weather conditions and are in the process of using that money and saving our regular budget money when that runs out. Our regular budget limits us on how many people we can work and how many supplies we can buy to use on the roads. And that usually runs out before end of year. Weather conditions dictate what we can accomplish on the roads throughout the year. We not only work on the roads, but we maintain the road right of way and most of the time, the equipment that we work with.
In closing, it would be my honor to serve Hopkins County and the citizens of Pct. #3 this next term. Everyone’s support would be greatly appreciated.
