Jared Woodfill - Former Harris County GOP Chairman Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, we've got folks working from home, but they're
not working from home in Harris County.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
No.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
More than two thousand Harris County employees work from home.
But some of them don't live in Harris County. Some
of them don't live in suburban areas like Fort Ben County.
They live in Austin or Dallas. Jared Woodfield joins us
former Harris County GOP chairman. I'm not sure how many
people this involves, Jared, but are these people who are

(00:27):
hired knowing that that's where they lived in Austin or
in Dallas, or are these people who have since moved
since getting this job and we just didn't realize that's
where they work.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well, great to be with you this morning, Jimmy, but yeah,
it's over two thousand individuals. These are individuals that aren't
living in Houston or Harris County even they're living in,
as you said, Dallas and Austin. And most of these
folks came in around March of twenty twenty when Lena
Hidalgo had to stay at home work orders that were
put in place. But what's so amazing about this is

(00:57):
thanks to the great work of a Commissioner Ram we
were able to uncover this, or he was able to
uncover this. They stonewalled and did everything they could to
keep him from getting the information he requested, and he
finally got it, but they can't give him answers to
why these folks are still working in Dallas and Austin
and they can't tell him what they're even doing.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
So we've got a whole lot.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
We've got a whole lot of empty buildings in Harris
County and workers that were paying for living in Dallas
in Austin, and it's just another example of government abuse
and waste the county level.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Okay, well, I think you had just identified the biggest problem.
We don't even know what they're doing or why they
were hired to begin with. And if you're talking about
two thousand people, do we have any idea how this
impacts Harris County's bottom line? How much money we spending
on these people?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, I mean, you just do the math. I mean,
these individuals are probably making on average one hundred thousand
dollars a year for doing who knows what. There's absolutely
no accountability and the rules and work that they're doing.
They don't live in the jurisdiction where it's occurring. So,
I mean, it's just another example of why we need
a Harris County version of DOGE. I mean, we've seen

(02:05):
at the national level, we've seen at the state level,
We've even seen at the city level leadership requiring employees
to go back to work that you're no longer going
to be allowed to work from home, where there's no accountability,
where there's waste, where there's abuse, where there's fraud. And
thank the Lord for Commissioner Ramsey who's standing up and
working to shine the light of day on this abuse.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I will give John Whitmyer credit the mayor of the
City of Houston. He won't call it doze, but he
is trying to find cost cutting measures because he knows
he has at least a three hundred million dollar deficit
to try to fill. I hope he takes it past
that because I'm pretty sure there's more than three hundred
million dollars in waste in the City of Houston. Last
question for you, Jared, is there a residency requirement to
work in Harris County? In other words, if you work

(02:45):
for Harris County government, do you have to live in
Harris County.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Absolutely not, and that's one of the things that we
need to put in place. I mean, the folks that
work in Harris County need to be responsible or live
under the laws, the rules of the regulations that they
work to implement, and so that needs to be changed
at the county level. But there's a whole lot of
things that the Democrat controlled a county administration needs to
change that unfortunately is not happening because look, Jimmy, bottom line,

(03:11):
it's our money, it's our taxpayer dollars that are paid
for this waste, this abuse, and this fraud.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yep, well, and good luck and fixing it. I think
the best way to fix this problem is through elections,
but we'll have to wait and see how that goes.
Jared Woodfille, thank you, sir as far as Harris County
GOP chair Jared Woodville seven twenty seven