Editorial: It's (Still) Time to End Tax-Funded Lobbying in Amarillo

By Thomas Warren III, Editor-in-Chief

About two years ago, I wrote an editorial calling for an end to the practice of using Amarillo taxpayers’ dollars to hire lobbyists. My complaints apparently fell on deaf ears, as Texas Ethics Commission reports, even while the Legislature is not in session, Amarillo taxpayers are still paying the salaries of seven Austin-area lobbyists.

While my concerns were not heard by Mayor Ginger Nelson and the City Council last time I brought them up, I think now is the perfect time to once again renew my call to end tax-funded lobbying in Amarillo. Let me explain.

Right now, Amarillo is facing a very odd budget situation. As far as several debt-funded projects are concerned, we are not even generating enough revenue to pay this year’s debt service in the way the debt was supposed to be paid. As far as the rest of the budget is concerned, the City Council has been issuing debt for projects, while asking for voters to approve even more debt this November to fund a few projects which voters already declined to fund in a 2016 bond election.

There is a lot that could be said on each of these issues, but to make it simple, the global economy is not is the best shape right now, and we continue to pile on the debt and increase taxes. The same people who promised to oppose tax increases — I’m looking at you, Eddy Sauer — are now voting for tax increases. Even with the tax increases, the debt service issue remains on projects which were not supposed to be funded by property taxes and the debt pile-on continues.

I think it is clear that our current City Council is not economically literate, even if they tout their supposed financial management and planning credentials when they run for office. In order to get out of this nasty financial mess our “champions for low taxes” have created for the citizens, we are going to have to stop adding to our debt burden and clean up this budget mess.

Whenever we start talking about budget cuts, the first place this City Council has tended to look is at cutting funding for community services. For example, in 2017, this City Council actively pursued budget cuts for libraries in North and East Amarillo, while leaving the budgets for libraries downtown and Southwest Amarillo off the chopping block. Ironically, while they were discussing the budget cuts to the libraries in 2017, the City Council gave city manager Jared Miller’s office a massive budget increase. Talk about saving money!

Instead of looking at slashing the budget for valuable community services like the library program, I think it is time to save Amarillo taxpayers some money and end the local government contracts with lobbyists. Amarillo taxpayers should not be footing the bill for our local government to hire lobbyists to lobby against the will of the taxpayers. Amarillo taxpayers have spent too much for too long to hire lobbyists to do the bidding of our elected officials, without input from the citizens. Enough is enough.

If the City Council is serious about following through with their campaign promises on taxes and eliminating waste, then they need to take a serious look at ending the practice of using Amarillo taxpayers’ dollars to hire lobbyists. On local issues, our municipal government should let the private sector take the lead on lobbying. And, if our local government officials continue to have concerns about what is going on in Austin, they can meet with the legislators or the governor directly to discuss the issues, just as Mayor Nelson did in 2017. She didn’t need a lobbyist for that trip, did she?

Luckily, voters in Amarillo will have a chance to pump the brakes on the debt crisis this November by voting against Proposition A, which would issue $275 million in tax-funded debt for downtown projects. But, beyond that, our City Council needs to start working on cleaning up the budget mess. And taxpayer-funded lobbying looks like a great place to start.