The lone Republican commissioner in Harris County wants taxpayers to know what their money is really going towards.
Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey has introduced a new campaign called “Wasted Potential” to bring light to the amount of money being spent on new programs and departments that he says are mostly "not needed."
Just recently, commissioners raised taxes more than 15 percent. According to Ramsey, the county's excuse for raising taxes was mainly for disasters.
"Nothing can be further from the truth," Ramsey told KTRH. "We're not spending it on that and in my estimation, we're wasting dollars on doing programs that aren't needed and bureaucratic offices such as the county administrator."
The County Administrator’s office was created in 2021 by Democrat County Judge Lina Hidalgo and the three Democrat commissioners to transfer some responsibilities of the court to an appointed administrator. According to Ramsey, the annual budget for that office, which has over 70 employees, is over $24 million, with the average position budgeted at $260,000 with salary and benefits. The county administrator makes over $400,000 a year.
"To me, that's wasted dollars and that's wasted potential," Ramsey said. "I don't think we need a county administrator or an office."
Instead, he'd rather see that money going towards adding patrol officers and fixing roads and parks.
"Those are the things that the citizens and constituents in Harris County expect, not a bureaucratic waste of money," said Ramsey.
With the cost of the county administrator’s salary alone, Harris County could hire seven additional patrol deputies. The overall budget of about $24 million is equal to more than 270 deputies.
The County Administrator’s office is just one of a dozen new programs or departments created by Harris County Democrat leaders that Ramsey believes are wasting time, money and effort. Ramsey says these Democrat officials are not in touch with the constituents and his campaign has some inspiration from DOGE to try and cut back on unnecessary spending into these new programs in Harris County or get rid of altogether.
"I am not going to be quiet and I will be on a regular basis making people aware of how we're wasting money when we really do need to spend those dollars in areas that constituents expect us to invest in," Ramsey added.
The Harris County Commissioners Court meets Thursday morning.