For The Record

The Court finished its public business and went behind closed doors at 9:59. It came back at noon. Two hours and one minute, three items, no action on any of them.

Before that it approved $5,540,000 toward a road inside one city, with no discussion at all.

There's exactly one County Auditor's certificate in this 242 page packet. It sits on that $5,540,000. It's unsigned, and that form doesn't even have a line for the amount. Eight other money items on this agenda don't carry one at all.

Item 2.A arrived with no appointments attached for the seventh meeting running. The bill report arrived with no bills for the seventh. The consent agenda went back to being voted before it was read, one meeting after the Court fixed that.

And on election day, in the middle of a proclamation honoring county employees, the County Judge told the room that criticism of how this county spends money and awards contracts is "a completely false narrative."

All three belong there. A real property negotiation, an economic development negotiation, and legal advice on a settlement offer in a lawsuit the county is party to. Those are what the exception exists for, and I've said so before.

Two of the three arrive in the packet with no memo of any kind. Just the caption and a blank court order.

And the last thing on the record before the door closed was the Judge saying, and I'm quoting the transcript, "it is 9:59 and we're in executive session for the birthday party."

He was joking. There was a cake in the conference room for a long serving employee and she'd earned it.

But that joke is the entire public account of two hours. Three items in, nothing out, no explanation, and the only words attached to that time are about cake.

What was said in there is privileged. What the Court owes on the way out is a sentence apiece: what each item was about and why it produced nothing.

The polls were open while he said it.

Here's the part I keep coming back to: "We have an election today, Lord, that we just want to pray that your will will be done in there."

That's a sitting member of this Court, at the government's own microphone, on election day, asking God to decide an election Denton County residents were at that moment voting in.

Third time in four meetings a prayer from this dais has reached into an election. February 10 asked that "who you have called to these positions has favor." February 24 asked for wisdom "as we go through elections and as we establish your will." Now this.

The county is not a congregation, and an election is not a prayer request.

A moment of silence. Every meeting. Nobody has to explain themselves.

The Judge asked if anyone wanted to pull anything, called for a motion, took the vote, and passed it unanimously. Then he said what was in it.

A week ago I credited this Court for doing that in the right order for the first time this year. It lasted one meeting.

And 2.A itself: the packet gives it three pages. A routing form, the caption reprinted, and a blank court order. No name. No position. No term. No board. The caption refers to "the appointment orders" and to interviews conducted under county policy, and neither the orders nor any record of an interview appears anywhere in 242 pages.

Fifth meeting in a row that item has arrived empty.

On February 24 the public at least heard who got appointed, because the presiding Commissioner read the name aloud on her own initiative. This time nobody did. So the entire public record of who Denton County appointed on March 3 is the phrase "Order Making Appointments."

Attach the order. It's one page.

Then the County Judge said this, before reading it:

"There's been a political narrative recently about the county and how we spend our money and how we award contracts and everything, and it's a completely false narrative."

Then he asked the other members if anyone wanted to add to it.

Election day, from the bench, on a recognition item.

So take the claim seriously and check it against the packet in front of him that morning.

One County Auditor's certificate in 242 pages, blank and unsigned, on a $5,540,000 obligation. Eight other money items carry no certificate at all. A $363,212.70 purchase approved in the name of a parent company, when the quote and the state contract it cites are both in the name of a subsidiary. An architecture firm ranked "most qualified" with no scoring sheet and no list of who else bid, which the caption says stays confidential until after award. The Court voted anyway.

The purchasing staff earned their proclamation. The paperwork didn't.

At 9:11 a county employee submitted the amendment. At 9:45 the same employee, now acting as the spend category approver, sent it back to himself. The reason on file: "Revise Amendment Date." At 9:46, 23 seconds later, he resubmitted it. At 9:51 he approved it.

Seven other rows in that approval chain are marked "Not Required."

Last meeting I flagged an amendment where one employee cleared six separate control roles in 36 minutes. This is the same failure in a smaller frame. Somebody is both the person asking and the person checking.

One more thing on the same page. When the packet went out, the final line still read "Awaiting Action" for the Court, and the amendment's own status was "In Progress."

Nobody up there asked about any of it. Motion, second, unanimous.

The person who submits a budget amendment cannot be the person who approves it. Configure the system so it refuses.

They aren't blank. I ran them through character recognition and pulled 17,538 words off them. Real documents. The four peace officer training contracts. Two Texas Ethics Commission Form 1295 filings. 14 pages of a state grant contract.

So a resident who wants to check what their county committed to on March 3 can open the packet, and a quarter of it won't respond to a search, won't let them copy a sentence, and won't be read aloud by a screen reader. Somebody who's blind can read three quarters of their county's business.

This is fixable in one step. The county already runs the software that produces these files. Text recognition is a checkbox.

I know what's on those pages because I did it myself. The county shouldn't be leaving that to a candidate.

That matters because of what I found in February. On February 24 this Court spent $2,058,938.60 out of "Judge Discretionary, TRIP-22," and another $142,500 out of "Precinct 4 Discretionary." I went looking for what the Judge's account was and found one description of it anywhere in this county's packets, buried in the 696 page January 29 packet inside a City of Denton ordinance, as a scanned image: the County Judge "has been allocated Twenty Five Million and 00/100 Dollars ($25,000,000.00) in TRIP 2022 funds."

So this isn't one fund. It's a set of them. At least one for each Commissioner and one for the County Judge, all drawing on the same voter approved road program.

Two meetings, three different discretionary accounts, $3,081,438.60 moved out of them, and not one word of discussion on any of it.

I can't tell you what's in any of these accounts, what's left, or who decides. Neither can you. The county has never published it.

Publish them. Every account, what went in, what's left, what it bought, and whose signature moves it.

The road is, in the agreement's own words, "located entirely within the municipal limits of the City and Denton County Commissioner Precinct #3."

Motion, second, unanimous. Nobody said anything.

Highland Village is doing the work. The agreement has it providing "all engineering, right-of-way acquisition, utility relocations, inspections, construction, and maintenance." That is real.

But the packet never puts a dollar figure on the city's share. Section V calls it an "exchange of in-kind services" and declares that "adequate consideration." So a resident reading all 242 pages cannot work out what portion of a $10,200,000 road their county is buying.

The Auditor's certificate on it is unsigned, and that form doesn't even have a line for the amount. The signature page reads "Executed this ___ day of ____________, 2025." Denton County hasn't signed it. Highland Village has.

This packet has one. It's on the $5,540,000 road agreement, and nobody signed it.

10 other items on this agenda move or record county money. A $363,212.70 server purchase. A $345,931.51 mowing contract. A $22,621.68 state grant amendment. A budget transfer, a travel authorization, four training agreements, the bill report. Not one of them carries a certificate.

I checked properly. Dozens of pages in this packet are scans with no readable text, so I had every one of them read by machine before I said this. There is no certificate hiding on a scan.

Five of the last seven meetings. January 13, January 29, February 3, February 24, and now.

The Auditor isn't the problem. He was in the room that morning. The problem is that this Court votes before his signature exists, and has done it every time I've looked.

Sign it before the vote, or don't take the vote.