The timeworn phrase "social liberal, fiscal conservative" applies to me. I'm a tightwad.
Same sex marriage, the LGBTQ community? I say live and let live.
But, for years, I've never understood the City of Brownsville's penchant for sending city officials, city commissioners and board members to far flung cities, paying for airfare, hotel accommodations and a health or unhealthy per diem for food and drinks.
Brownsville literally spends hundreds of thousand of dollars annually on such "training."
Assistant City Manager/Health Guru Arturo Rodriguez may be the king of out-of-town training, seemingly headed somewhere every little bit.
As I said a decade ago; why can't the prospective trainees be put into a room for a conference call with a suitable instructor, saving the city the huge expenditure on airfare, hotels and eats.
Hell, cater the boys and girls the best local cuisine available, but use some semblance of the "remote learning" COVID-19 taught us was possible.
The same thing goes for sending a large delegation to Wichita, Chicago, Portland, Denver or Podunk to receive a city honor or reward for excellence.
Most of these so-called "awards," like the All-America Award of 2014 are as phony as a three dollar bill, just a money-making scheme.
BCIC CEO Josh Mejia and Board Member Ben Neece tried to explain how much recognition is gained for the city by such publicity, that every penny spent on those trips is justified as it puts Brownsville on the map, so to speak.
I simply don't believe it.
Businesses don't locate in Brownsville because of some phony All-America designation or because a city board gets "recognition," even if they have to pay for it.
As I told Ben and Josh, I think people serving on boards or working for the city, consider out-of-town travel as a perk or their appointment, a chance to get away from it all on the taxpayer's dime.
Let's take a photographic trip down memory lane:
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Correction: it's "per diem"
ReplyDeleteWho's shorter..Eddie Trevino or Trey Mendez?
ReplyDeleteI agree that the contingents local government sends are too large and, like you, I suspect they are mostly social events but, I think there is something to be said for training events if they are in fact training. As a former state employee I attended several large, out of town training events where I was given the opportunity to learn from experts in the field, usually in small "breakout" groups where I had a chance to question the expert and enter into discussions with others in the group. I usually had my choice of two or three different topics to attend on each of two days. There were often organized social hours in the evening (never an open bar) where the contacts from the class could be solidified. More then once I was later able to call on such a contact for help of some kind, a resource that benefited my job performance. All conferences were in state, usually in San Antonio or Austin. When the state policy regarding such activity changed and all training became local a good deal of the benefit of the training vanished. My fellow trainees where people from the area that I already knew and who had all the same training I had so I knew what they knew and lost that peer resource and the trainers were agency trainers who were not expert in the field though they did sometimes co-train with experts. Never the less, the experience was lacking, the learning opportunities less and the program suffered from it. By the way, we were reimbursed for our hotel rooms, meals and travel based on our receipts which could not exceed the state rate.
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