DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $15,000, OR $10,000

By Juan Montoya
Cameron County Auditor Martha Galarza had a bad day at the office today.
Armed with the approval by the generous district judges of the county who set her salary, she went before the county commissioners court and requested that her $94,500 base salary be upped by $15,000 to $109,500. The court, unable to give county employees a salary increase in the five years that Carlos Cascos has been in office, hemmed and hawed at the proposal, but delicately informed her that the budget just wouldn't permit it.
The county auditor's salary, under Texas law, is set by the district judges in the county. However, if the county's budget doesn't have it to give, the commissioners aren't obligated to oblige to their dictum.
Now, we always thought that the county – according to Galarza herself – would have something like $187 left in the till if they gave the county workers a one-time stipend of $500 instead of a pay increase. Suddenly, the adroit county auditor said she had found some untapped funds that would make her raise possible. She even softened her request by lowering it to $10,000.
Now, we're not saying that perhaps Galarza doesn't merit a raise. But some commissioners were wary of raising her salary over Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio's, citing state law that prohibited such an occurrence.
What we do know is that in the past two years, external audits of her department have drawn admonishments in the reports that she had not followed "traditional auditing practices" and advised to adhere to them in the future. Apparently, she has not.
However, the voting on her raise also raised some eyebrows. Normally, fiscal conservatives like Pct. 3 commissioner David Garza and County Judge Carlos Cascos will be the ones voting against nay increase that does not apply to all employees countywide. In the case of the $3,000 raises given to Carmon County District Clerk Aurora de la Garza and County Clerk Joe Rivera, the money came from the salary of commissioner Dan Sanchez.
Even then, a question has arisen there about the propriety of doing that and then lowering their salary in thenext fiscal budget when the court is not obligated to pitch in the $6,000 that Sanchez –said to be eyeing a run at the county judge's seat – so generously awarded the duo.
Oh yeah, the voting.
Voting for the raise was Cascos and Garza. Voting against the raise was Pct. 1 Commissioner Sofia Benavides, Pct. 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez, and Pct. 3 Commissioner Dan Garza.
"Who would have figured?" asked a county insider. "Cascos, who's a Certified Public Accountant, despite the external audit problems, still voted for the raise as did Garza. And now the others – who are generally considered the tax-and-spend crowd voted against it. How do you figure."