The walton county jail

[Andy A]

Your point is well taken in regard to it being taxpayer money and it should be monitored. You failed to mention one very important point, however. If the county does not apply for and receive grant monies, some other county will and receive it. Some grants are competitive, others are not, but all are monies that will be released to someone. I have no idea how the grant system began and will not defend it or attack it but it is what it is and it does make federal and state money available to those enities below them. Having been involved in EMS grant writing for approximately 5 years it is no fun particularly when they are competitive grants as EMS grants were.

 

[idlewind]

Your point is well taken in regard to it being taxpayer money and it should be monitored. You failed to mention one very important point, however. If the county does not apply for and receive grant monies, some other county will and receive it. Some grants are competitive, others are not, but all are monies that will be released to someone. I have no idea how the grant system began and will not defend it or attack it but it is what it is and it does make federal and state money available to those enities below them. Having been involved in EMS grant writing for approximately 5 years it is no fun particularly when they are competitive grants as EMS grants were.

Grants are terrible policy, they mask the true cost of things and are used by one entity to persuade another to do something they would not otherwise do. I have no problem with competing for a grant for an item I would purchase anyways but taking grants just for the sake of "getting ours" is a huge mistake. Nevertheless, grant money is a product of a tax on someone somewhere and needs to be treated as carefully as any other tax funds.

 

[wrobert]

I hope the Board of County Commissioners doesn't hand over the jail keys to the Sheriff's Office. He manages to go over budget on everything he touches. I understand Adkinson's expansion of the emergency operations center complete with a dozen in wall plasma televisions and thousand dollar chairs is about a half-million over the initial cost estimate. I guess us taxpayers would serve the sentence of such a bonehead decision by the lap dog administrator lyle z. and the county commissioners.

You are drive by poster spouting off numbers with no facts and all of this is public record. So you expect me to believe that Mike Adkinson would stand up and publicly speak to how much money he is saving, reduce the budget of his department, the whole time having gone over this project by a half million dollars.

You, my friend, are a hoot!!!

And obviously a digruntled person of some sort with the professional manner that Sheriff Adkinson and Captain Barker are conducting business.

 

[wrobert]

They got a Grant for the new chairs

First Adkinson and Barker squeak when they walk they are so darn tight. And it does not matter whose money it is. I have dealt with Adkinson on money before and the man is tight.

Second, and I may very well be wrong here, but if memory is working, Barker got the funding to do this from a fund in Tallahassee that we all pay into via our cell phones for 911 service and the only way to get those dollars back into your county is to apply for them, the projects are scored, and things are funded until the dollars run out. Technically a grant, but not in the sense that we are getting dollars from other areas, we are just getting our dollars back.

Third, if someone is going to have my rear in a chair for eight hours, it better be a nice one and I do not care what it cost. But again, all od this is ridiculous when all that has to be done is call up there they will go over what they did and show you the bills.

Fourth, plasma monitors are cheap. $600 for a 50" is pretty common. No reason whatsoever that all information available can now be displayed where everyone can see it, the life they save may be YOURS!

 

[Andy A]

Grants are terrible policy, they mask the true cost of things and are used by one entity to persuade another to do something they would not otherwise do. I have no problem with competing for a grant for an item I would purchase anyways but taking grants just for the sake of "getting ours" is a huge mistake. Nevertheless, grant money is a product of a tax on someone somewhere and needs to be treated as carefully as any other tax funds.

I won't even begin to argue with you about grants being terrible policy. It is something that governments have established to maintain control over lesser governments and individuals granted grant monies. Where we disagree is on the fact that it is our tax money, not necessarily some one else's, and we should access all of it we need. If others see fit not to apply for grant funds, so be it, but I don't want Walton County left in the lurch. Good grant writers are worth their weight in gold, literally. We may not like the system but that is the way it is until someone changes it.

 

[idlewind]

I won't even begin to argue with you about grants being terrible policy. It is something that governments have established to maintain control over lesser governments and individuals granted grant monies. Where we disagree is on the fact that it is our tax money, not necessarily some one else's, and we should access all of it we need. If others see fit not to apply for grant funds, so be it, but I don't want Walton County left in the lurch. Good grant writers are worth their weight in gold, literally. We may not like the system but that is the way it is until someone changes it.

I don't disagree with getting what we need to help us do what we would do anyways. But I disagree with wasting one penny of tax money wherever it comes from.
Really grants are nothing more than government welfare and is designed to serve the same purpose welfare does on individuals.

 

[Andy A]

I don't know that I would go so far as to call grants "government welfare" and they usually require a lot of information and justification for funding. There are better ways, I'm sure, to redistribute tax monies (note I said tax monies, not wealth). Your representative and senator may be the place to start in order to change the system. Good Luck!

 

[stressfultimes]

You didnt say

I hope the Board of County Commissioners doesn't hand over the jail keys to the Sheriff's Office. He manages to go over budget on everything he touches. I understand Adkinson's expansion of the emergency operations center complete with a dozen in wall plasma televisions and thousand dollar chairs is about a half-million over the initial cost estimate. I guess us taxpayers would serve the sentence of such a bonehead decision by the lap dog administrator lyle z. and the county commissioners.

about all the money he has spent on new SUV's, Trucks I remember a time when everyone complained about the much needed new cars being brought but nothng about all he has brought.

 

[wrobert]

about all the money he has spent on new SUV's, Trucks I remember a time when everyone complained about the much needed new cars being brought but nothng about all he has brought.

Maybe because contrary to what others have said, he is doing all of this under budget.

 

[Bob Wells]

Now wrobert, can you really back that up?