Our local “leaders” at the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD), at City Council, and at Commissioners Court are right when they comment that they do not have the authority to tell anyone in the organizations that they represent to do anything (in other words manage the staff directly).
They are members of governing organizations that must exert control as a group. (I will refer to these governing organizations as boards in an effort to avoid getting too wordy.) A single member of any of these boards does not have the right to speak for his group without the express permission of the group. They must govern by building a consensus with the other members of their board. The organizations they represent are managed on a day-to-day by other people. In the case of the School District and the City it is through a paid manager. In the case of the county most of the managers are other elected officials like the Sheriff and the County Clerk, so the commissioners have even less direct control over operations.
They should not intervene with the running of any department directly. They should be declaring policy and controlling the person managing the organization. That is what they are not doing.
They have the power to ask questions. They can bring their manager before their board and ask questions when they believe something is wrong. They have the power as a group to tell the manager what they want done.
They have the power of the budget. They may not be able to tell a department how to operate but they certainly can control how much money the department has and how the money will be used.
These hired managers work for their board.
This is the way that business boards run and it can be quite effective. Our City Representatives on the other hand seem to think that they work for the City Manager. If a representative votes the wrong way the representative has to bear the wrath of the City Manager who writes that they are “crazy” or that they have the beginnings of “dementia”. Even worse, the City Manager may deny the representative’s district some funding until the representative gets back in line.
Our problem is that we have elected people to these boards that have never run anything substantial.
The EPISD board has seven members–two that are professional educators (similar to the inmates running the asylum), a PTA activist, a retired army officer, a federal official, an insurance agent, and a person who has run a metal shop.
Our City Council has a former property manager, a former aid to a Mayor of El Paso, a former city department head, a retired army first sergeant, a private physician, a representative who says he is a small businessman (I have not been able to figure out where), a lawyer, and a person who was evidently a stock broker for a short while.
The County Commissioners Court offers us a lawyer who worked for the county for a number of years, a body shop owner, a lawyer who was appointed to the position of commissioner, and a person who works in real estate.
Are we nuts? No wonder we are in this situation. EPISD has about 10,000 employees, the City has about 6,000, the County almost 3,000. I am not sure that I would hire any one of these “leaders” to run a bubble gum stand.
Please understand that I am not trying to be critical of these professions. My point is that these people do not have the experience necessary to control their manager. If they did we would not be where we are.
Having a couple of people on each of these boards that have run significant operations themselves and that know how to ask questions would do us a world of good. Many qualified candidates will not do it because they do not want to put up with the environment they would be thrown into. We need to ask them for help.
We deserve better.
Posted by jcurrey 
elpasospeak 