It is Hard to See the NRH "Moving" Budget

By Ron C. West

The City of North Richland Hills begins a new fiscal year each October. Prior to October 1st of each year they approve the budget for the city to operate under. For the 2002-2003 year, this involves the budgeting and obligation of over $79 Million in funds.

Under Texas law, the budget is an "open record" but that is a little deceiving. Open records are only really open if you can see them easily. This article is being written on October 30, 2002 and for some reason, unknown to me, the budget is not "finalized", printed or available to the general public. When I approached Ms. Karen Bostic, head of the city's budget area, on October 28th, she said that there were still changes being made to the budget. Being uninformed, I thought that the budget was presented and approved prior to the setting of the tax rates for the current year by the city council. I didn't know that continual changes were being made after such approval.

To enlighten myself, I had previously made an open records request on September 16th and was informed by the City Secretary that it would cost approximately $48 to have a copy made of the budget at that time. The City Secretary suggested that it would be cheaper to wait until the budget was actually printed (in some numbers I assumed) so I elected to do so. Now 45 days later, the budget is still not printed and Ms. Bostic now says that the cost to get a copy is around $75 or more plus their labor. I made a request today to the City Secretary under open records to get a "new" exact figure for the budget book.

Being a savvy citizen, I thought today that I would go to the NRH Library, where there is supposed to be a copy of the budget - only to find that they didn't have one either!

I don't know whether to be calm and wait for the city staff to actually prepare the final budget that was approved by the city council with their changes or to be nervous about what is really going on. Those folks are spending $79 Million of tax payers' money and they don't even have the plan for the big bucks printed?

I don't know about other citizens of North Richland Hills but it really makes me a little uneasy to be unable to readily review the current budget for the city when they are already spending the money. I knew it was difficult to see what they wanted to do before they had it approved but - a moving target now? No copies available now?

Maybe it is time to organize a citizens group to review the budget with all meetings called to meet in the City Secretaries Office where the only available "preliminary" copy exists?

I wonder what we are missing? Is someone hiding something from the public?