Escambia County has repeatedly rejected charter government which has led to individual feafdoms in county government. The county commission and the citizens have no say in the budgets of tax collector or property appraiser -their budgets are approved by Dept. of Revenue. The Sheriff doesn’t have to give the commission a detailed budget.
We have duplication of personnel, accounting, purchasing and several other departments in each of the constitutional offices. There is no uniformity of salaries for similar positions. We can’t hold a recall vote on any elected county official. We can’t hold a petition drive for a referendum.
We’ve got all these elected officials and no control but the ballot box every four years…and this just doesn’t seem to enough of a deterrent against county budget increases.
So all you ultra-conservatives that opposed Charter Government – you should pat yourselves on the back for this mess. You were given a solution and you failed to understand the issues. It’s so easy to bitch and moan rather than do move ahead.
