County Administrator David Berry
Harris Counties Democrats second step in subverting their constituent’s rights in local government came in the form of the installment of County Administrator David Berry. Once again exhibiting more control of our local government after the removal of our election official. Mr. Berry’s position came to be after the county’s democrats awarded a five million dollar contract to far left leaning PFM Group Consulting to conduct studies in creating a “more streamlined organizational and reporting structure to improve coordination and services and provide more transparent, strategic, responsive, and accountable County governance, with an additional budget of 2 million”. In true Democrat fashion, the counties judge introduced the item 5 days before the commissioner’s court to conduct the vote and made little to no outreach to her constituents regarding this position.
Commissioner Tom Ramsey swiftly reached out to his constituents via social media and attached a document with information regarding this position, and what rights it would take from the constituents. In true Democrat form, there were no announcements to the Democrats precincts constituents and it was quite obvious they were intending to hide this position and vote from their constituents- no different than what the Democrats in Washington do passing bills in the dead of night. Thankfully, there is about two solid commissioners in our county who go above and beyond to make sure not to keep their constituents in the dark.
Due to commissioners Ramsey’s swift action to keep his precincts constituents informed, many came to commissioners court to speak against the position of a county administrator. Of course, the will of the people fell onto the deaf ears of the democrats, and they pushed through the vote down party line of 3-2. This position awarded David Berry a 2 million dollar budget and 6 figure salary. David appears to be more of a money man, and just is abiding by the will of the Democrats. Mr. Berry is quite good at moving all the counties money around, especially the PIC funds and has been put in charge of:
serve as the county budget officer;
maintain the authority to appoint and dismiss deputies, managing directors and other department heads, expect where a position must be appointed by Commissioners Court according to Texas statute, in which case appointment should be made by Commissioners Court on the recommendation of the county administrator;
develop and present regular reports to Commissioners Court on county performance related to identified outcomes and metrics approved by Commissioners Court;
develop and present the county's long-range strategic plan for consideration and approval by Commissioners Court;
coordinate the development and execution of strategic goals and objectives, performance management and sound fiscal management with significant responsibility to proactively identify and resolve issues to ensure ongoing county operations; and
provide guidance and coordination to all county departments to ensure county business is conducted in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.
When I inspected David’s LinkedIn, I found it a bit suspect to why he was chosen for such a robust position with his work history:
Though, I’ve found that most of the hires in which the democrats in the county seem to gravitate towards don’t seem to be qualified for their positions at all. It’s possibly that this is by design, but who knows. Below there’s a chart of just the two past two years the county has awarded PFM.
I found more invoices to PFM Group Consulting from our auditor’s invoices, and the amount of money paid to them is astronomical.