I am writing today in regard to a [Grand County Commission] budget amendment for two commissioners’ personal travel expenses.
As a municipal treasurer, I find their disregard for the budget and the extreme nature of the disregard very troubling. I work really hard on our budgets as I am sure GC’s team does too. We try to ensure that we are not wasting taxpayer money on frivolous spending.
They are asking for increases that amount to 833% ($750 to $7,000) and 566% ($750 to $5,000) of what they were originally budgeted; this is only the year’s halfway point. Are they going to ask for even more in the next six months?
The rest of the members seem to do their jobs just fine on their travel budgets.
To overspend their budgets by this huge margin I would expect to hear of some extraordinary, highly important and expensive reasons for this kind of spending.
I ask them to enlighten us on the reasons for their travel and why the costs are so extreme.
If there are no good reasons for this gross overage then they should pay for the costs themselves, because as a taxpayer I don’t want to pay for them and I’m sure others do not as well!
Thank you,
Tory Hill
Castle Valley Treasurer
Note: In June, Grand County commissioners Bill Winfield, Mike McCurdy and Jacques Hadler requested budget increases for travel. -ed.
