Maverick County Judge David R. Saucedo’s Response to County Taxpayers Rollback Petition Invalidation Claims

By: County Judge David Saucedo

To the Citizens of Maverick County:

It is important to let you know what has happened over the last few months here in your County government.  Also, you need to know what will happen, if a certain group is successful in the tax rollback petition.   This same group continues with false claims and inaccurate information, as to actions taken by your Commissioners including me as your County Judge.   First and foremost I want you to know that all actions taken by your Commissioners regarding the tax rate, is what the law requires us to do, and nothing else.    Despite all the outright lies and misinformation, your Commissioners court did not raise your taxes.  The action that was taken by Commissioners Court was to rescind the tax rate when it was discovered a mistake had been made by the County Tax Assessor.  It was an honest mistake, self-reported by the Tax collector and corrected.

Maverick County Commissioners have found the petition submitted by Ethelvina Felan invalid for two reasons.  First:  Maverick County did not raise taxes above its published rollback rate.  In fact we adopted a rate that was 4 cents lower than last year’s tax rate.   Second:  Invalid signatures, which included obvious forgeries, double signatures, lack of signatures, people who are not registered to vote, and a dead person.  The review was conducted under supervision of the Elections Administrator.  The process followed by your Commissioners is exactly the process required by the law.

Ethelvina Felan turned in this petition after the law gave her 90 days to do so. It is not the Commissioners fault that she did not check her signatures thoroughly. With respect to the obvious fraud in not only false signatures and non-voters, the dead persons signature submitted by Ms. Felan has been reported for investigation.  The fact that Ms. Felan attempted to turn in more signatures after the deadline is not allowed by law, and were not accepted.

It is also important for you to know the services that would be lost if Ms. Felan and her group were to have a rollback. Services would be cut by up to 40%. What does that mean? It means you would have to shut down Maverick County Road & Bridge two days out of the week. It would probably be opened Monday-Wednesday .  No trash and brush pickup, no vector control, and no permits administered. You also would have less patrolling by Sheriff’s deputies.  All county departments serve all the residents of Maverick County.  You would also have to cut back on food pantry services, and support that is given to our elderly at the Maverick County Nutrition Center.  This program would also be cut one to two days a week.  As for all Maverick County employees, we would be forced to cut 1 out of every 4 jobs (25%) for the remainder of this year, and the employees who do remain would be cut to only 30 hours a week,  working from Monday-Wednesday.

Your County Commissioners have a responsibility to all the residents of this county, not just a select few who are acting for their own self-interest.  Although we have respect for those that legitimately signed the petition, we have a responsibility to all the residents of Maverick County to protect and defend your interest.  That is our oath and that is what we are doing.

Respectfully,

David R. Saucedo
Maverick County Judge