Not a Single Meeting

Last night, as the Sumner County Commission passed budgets for the 2015-16 fiscal year, Commissioner Jim Vaughn made a surprising revelation.  He told his fellow Commissioners and those in attendance that he hadn't attended a single budget committee meeting or any other meeting related to the budget. He said he didn't know what was going on in this year's budget. He noted that the school system's budget was growing, but he couldn't say why or whether it was justified, just that it seemed like a lot of money.

Vaughn then joined County Commissioners Merrol Hyde, Moe Taylor, Mike Akins, and Steve Graves in opposing funding for all the county's budgets.

Vaughn's comments suggest a lack of engagement in perhaps the most important responsibility of a County Commissioner: How taxpayer dollars are spent. The School Board began it's budgeting process in February and held meetings related to the budget in May. After the School Board's budget meetings, County Commission committees began examining the school system's budget and other departmental budgets.

It's been two weeks since all budget hearings were complete -- time when Vaughn could have asked questions of department heads and/or County Finance Director David Lawing.

Vaughn no doubt knows all the key plays because prior to September of 2014, he served on the County Commission's Budget Committee. So, he was intimately involved in the budget- making process.

While other commissioners (Schell, Foster, Kemp) indicated they'd talked to key players about the budget during the process, Vaughn confessed to having paid zero attention to what was happening.

Before voting to oppose the budgets he hadn't studied, Vaughn asked to defer the budgets for 10 days so he would have time to read and study them. 

While he didn't have time to study the Sumner County Budgets he's been elected to review and evaluated, he did make time to attend meetings of the Hendersonville Board of Mayor and Aldermen and advocate for the budget there - a budget that includes a pay raise for the police department. Of course, Vaughn's full-time job is as a Hendersonville police detective. So, when police in Hendersonville get a raise, Jim Vaughn gets a raise.

This is not the first time Vaughn has demonstrated a complete lack of engagement in important County Commission business. Back in September and October, before a vote on setting the tax rate, Vaughn missed a month of meetings and then announced publicly he didn't understand why there was a proposal on the table to raise the tax rate.

Then, as now, Vaughn skipped key meetings and then complained to the public that he didn't know what was going on. While other Commissioners not on the budget committee attended its meetings, Vaughn did not. While other Commissioners not on the budget committee asked questions of the Finance Director and Department Heads, Vaughn did not.

All of this begs the question: What is Jim Vaughn doing?

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