EDITORIAL: Jackson County government: Tail is wagging the dog

The next board of commissioners is likely to be faced with a difficult county budget and pressure from county administrators pushing for a tax hike. Whomever gets elected will have a difficult job.
But here’s a pledge everyone running for the BOC should be forced to make: No additional taxes! That means no additional millage and no backdoor tax hike through higher property valuations.
The question all BOC candidates should be asked by voters now is this: Do you, Mr. Candidate, have the guts to say “No” to county manager Darrell Hampton and his army of bureaucrats who demand more and more from taxpayers?
The current BOC lacks that courage and has simply nodded as the county government has exploded spending in recent years. Although Jackson County has been growing, the rate of government growth has far exceeded the rate of population growth.
Over the last decade, Jackson County’s population has grown around 57 percent. In that same time, the county’s total assessed property values has gone up 200 percent and sales taxes have climbed 104 percent. Yet despite higher property values and sales tax income, the millage rate hasn’t gone down and county government spending, excluding capital and debt expenses, has jumped 160 percent.
What changed? In 2000, we “professionalized” our county government by going to a strong county manager system of government.
That system has some benefits, but one of the downsides has been a series of county managers who have hiked county employee wages and benefits and expanded the county’s bureaucracy. Mr. Hampton is just the latest such bureaucrat to occupy the manager’s seat and like his predecessors, he is driven by bureaucratic urges to grow local government even in slow economic times.
Current county budget plans, for example, look to add more staff and hike wages around four percent despite the obvious problem of declining revenue due to the housing bust.
In addition to being a typical bureaucrat, Mr. Hampton also enjoys playing cat-and-mouse with the public. He has hosted a series of “retreats” with the BOC, both in the county and out of town. These BOC meetings are designed to hide BOC discussions from the public and are scheduled at times when Mr. Hampton knows they cannot be covered by the media. In addition, some of these meetings were called to discuss one topic, but other more controversial topics were discussed as well.
And members of the BOC have just gone along with all this without a peep of dissent. The tail is wagging the dog.
So the next board of commissioners will have some difficult decisions to make, both in cutting county spending and in reining in county officials who seek to protect their own bureaucratic kingdoms.
And until the county has a strong BOC that will do that, taxpayers will suffer the consequences.