Maryann McKissick: Let us vote on discretionary funds

County CEO Jim Brown apparently thinks rolling over $622,739.59 and adding another $200,000 annually solely for discretionary uses by supervisors has little to no impact on our overall county budget deficit. He claims layoffs of several personnel is due to "re-evaluating the way county does business" rather than being a fiscal matter.

Tell that to those parents who will now have to scrounge for scarce jobs in this economy to pay for their children's needs.

Using these discretionary funds and sidestepping county hiring protocols, supervisors now are able to squander our taxpayer resources to build larger support bureaucracies for themselves.

Brown claims that "the county receives just as many letters and phone calls from people supporting the funds." While the discretionary fund set-asides are technically legal and have been doled out here since the late '90s, it remains a wasteful, little-accounted for expense.

It should be brought up for a general ballot vote, rather than decided by five supervisors who have a deeply vested interest in seeing it continue.

MARYANN McKISSICK

Merced