Wayne Dolcefino - Investigator, Dolcefino Consulting Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, if it weren't for Leslie Beroni's you all get
a Moses seven twenty one is our time here on
Houston's Boring News. We're joined by Wayne Delchafino, investigator at
Ulta Fino Consulting. Seems appropriate we're talking about today, Wayne,
because today the Harris County Commissioner's Court is going to
meet and talk about the budget. Is Leslie Beroni's going
to be asked to explain how she came up with
a one point five million dollars for her staff.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Absolutely not, And you know why because government never loves
to look back. Right, They screw us all the time
and they never want to look back. Look, this was
an investigation that costs some trouble in my office because
I don't pay bonuses to my shaft except for a
little bit during Christmas. I told him that their retention
bonus was not getting fired. But they started raising questions. Look,

(00:45):
they raised our taxes last year, right by fifty percent? Right,
that's what makes this even more arrogant.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well, you know what, Wayne, what's what's we should explain
that to people because what's really sad about that is
they don't think they raise star taxes because they didn't
raise the tax rate. Well, that doesn't matter if appraisals
are up and more money is coming in. Our taxes
went up.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Even Commissioner Ramsey said they raised our taxes fifteen percent
last year, and so this year they claimed they're going
to give us a balanced budget, which means to me
a couple of things. First of all, it was all
kinds of fact to trend and they should train maybe
more fat. But here's the real arrogance of this. For
folks listening, many of them remember the days when government

(01:30):
employees were all paid I'm talking cops here, but government
employees were paid so little, right, which is why we
needed these great pensions for them. Right, they've got better
pensions in the government sector than we do in the
private sector. Right, And we did that. But now they
make so much money. You know what, Rodney Ellis's chief
of staff one precinct makes four hundred and five thousand dollars.

(01:52):
What's that all about.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
That's crazy? So who got these races from leslie Berni's
What did they do to deserve the races?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, so, look, bonuses are really illegal. So Christian Menife,
the county Attorney's part of the story, right. You can't
call it a bonus, right because that's illegal. So you
just changed the name Christian menity sort of thought up.
The auditor had never seen this before, it had never
been done. They just changed the name to call it
a attention incentive for top people got twenty up to

(02:24):
twenty thousand dollars in a bonus in the year they
raised everyone's taxes. Nice.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
And I'm sure these were all people who are ready
to quit, right, so they had to do this to
retain them. That's what a retention payment would be about.
Where are these people ready to quit? Where are these
people people who are irreplaceable?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Now? How about that for your answer?

Speaker 1 (02:49):
So she got away with this, and I'm guessing, I'm
guessing she's probably not the only one. I'm sure Tom
Ramsey is clean as the day is long. I mean,
Tom Ramsey's one hell of a guy. But I'm sure
that Leslie Bernis is not the only one who's tried
some of this.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
No, and look, they all do it in different ways,
but Leslie Briannis was the first to do this, and
other commissioners actually said, he what a great idea. Look,
as long as they're taking care of the deputies now, right,
and as long as they do what I would suggest
Harris County do, which is a forensic audit, right, it
is time for the county auditor to be made a

(03:27):
real county auditor that can go into any of these programs.
And by the way, the two point whatever billion dollar
budget they're going to talk about today, that doesn't include
the Tolos flush fund money. Remember that.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Okay, good to know. As always, thank you for the reporting, sir,
good to talk to you. That is Wayne Deltrafino, investigator
at Dultrafino Consulting,