Editor's Note: Below is a transcript of the conversation between Nick Gosnell and Tim Davies on KWBW on July 22, 2024. Davies opponent, Ron Vincent was offered the opportunity for a similar interview and declined that opportunity.
Nick Gosnell: We have candidate Tim Davies with us. He is running for the Reno County Commission for the northeastern part of the county. The seat currently held by Daniel Friesen, but Daniel has stepped aside. He is not going to be running this time around. Ron Vincent is the other candidate in this race, and he was offered an opportunity to speak, but chose to decline that opportunity this morning. And so we'll talk to Tim, and then we've got another guest at 745, but so wanted to chat with Tim Davies this morning. Good morning, sir.
Tim Davies: Good morning.
Nick Gosnell: All right. So first of all, what is the experience that you believe makes you qualified to serve on the Reno County Commission?
Tim Davies: Well, I started my career in accounting as an auditor, okay, with Bartlett Settle and Edgeley here in Hutchinson. And I did audit Reno County and several other counties in Kansas cities and school districts. And from there, I went on to be corporate controller for Collins Industries and left there in 2005 because they moved their corporate headquarters to Texas, and in that period of time, I worked as the fiscal administrator for Reno County, where I did prepare the budget and acted as a counselor to the county commissioners. And then subsequent to that, I went to Collins Bus and worked there from 2008 until I retired in 2020.
Nick Gosnell: Okay, so what's your top priority should you win and end up elected to the office?
Tim Davies: To be a representative for the people of my district and the whole county. I feel like people really need to be heard and people are really sometimes struggling to make ends meet. So if they have somebody who was acting as a representative that can help them express their opinions and control the costs, it's better.
Nick Gosnell: All right. What is one thing you think the should spend less money on?
Tim Davies: Wow. That's a tough question. There are lots of things the county could spend less money on, but I don't know that it's a matter of picking just one item. There's so many items that the cost could be controlled better if there was a little foresight and planning.
Nick Gosnell: Now, the other side of the coin, what should the county spend more money on? These are the decisions the commissioners make because now that they have a professional administrator in place, a lot of that other day-to-day stuff that the commissioners handled back when you were helping them before they had a professional administrator isn't done that way anymore. Right?
Tim Davies: Well, that's true. That's true. But the county commissioners are still the ultimate authority when it comes to authorizing the use of the funds.
Nick Gosnell: And so I guess that's because budgeting is all about priorities. It's not about that one thing is necessarily better or worse than the other, or one use of a dollar is better or worse than the other. It's that you have to decide as a board what the priorities are going to be.
Tim Davies: Well, the priorities for the county should be growth. Okay. And by growth, there needs to be more manufacturing. And you had a piece on this morning about an advertising campaign potentially to air on public television through the use of the economic development funds. I think last year's budget, that was 450,000. This year it's 400,000. But is it the best use of funds? I don't know that much about this project at this point because this morning was the first time I'd heard about it. But my inclination would be given that it's going to air on public TV, is it the best use of funds?
Nick Gosnell: Right. Because although lots of folks watch public television, are the people that are going to be watching public television the ones that you want to draw with a piece like this? And that's the policy conversation they've got to have on Wednesday.
Tim Davies: Correct.
Nick Gosnell: And again, it's not that there's any right or wrong way of handling a specific thing. They could decide either way and it could be the right decision. We don't have the information yet, but the point of the matter is that having those conversations, which they do in public, that's the point of the commission.
Tim Davies: Well, true. And there has to be a give and take, a back and forth. And there has to be a lot of study. I mean, when we had the debate, the question came up on solar. And some of the information that I had was probably not completely correct in that debate. But subsequent study has led me to believe that it could be a good thing for Reno County. But by the same token, we have to consider the consequences. That's the whole thing with a leadership position. You want to do your research to make the best decision.
Nick Gosnell: Tim is running against Ron Vincent in the Republican primary for that seat. And again, the primary is August 6th, but you can already vote in advance at the Reno County Annex if you would like to do so. And we do have the video of the county commission forum so that you can go take a look at that if you'd like to before you go vote. Tim, you know, this is really a situation where it's tough on all governing bodies because inflation has absolutely hit every sector of the economy, including government. And so there are simple cost increases that have happened. But how do you shape a budget when you really may not know if things are going to cost the same in January as they do in December of a given year?
Tim Davies: Well, that is difficult. Inflation really hurts everybody, not just an individual, but also city and state governments and local governments. The best way to do that, when I was the fiscal administrator, we were kind of in a period of inflation, maybe not quite as bad as what it is right now. But one of the things that we did look at and do was we forward contracted natural gas. When we set the budget, we knew what the price of the gas was. And it was at the, you know, it was at the best time to lock in on about 80 percent of the usage. Kind of wanted to do that for gasoline too, because that protects your cost. If you set a budget at so many dollars and you know that the landfill and the sheriff's department and the Department of Transportation is going to use X amount of gallons of gasoline throughout the year, and you can lock those expenditures in at the beginning of the year at maybe the best price that you're going to get, you don't know. It's always a gamble. But if you can lock those costs, you're better off.
Nick Gosnell: Yeah. And it's really hard because those variable costs are the ones that really, really can get you at the end of the year. The county is, speaking relatively at the moment, doing okay in terms of cash balances. But the idea is always to have at least a couple of months of expenses back. How do you make a conscious effort to continue to save when those costs are continuing to rise?
Tim Davies: Well, that's true, because currently I think the balance is about four and a half million dollars, which is approximately two and a half months, where I know that the city is running really close. Okay. But the way that you can do that is every expenditure is budgeted at the beginning of the year. But if you see that the budget is not going to cover all of the costs for all of the programs that you want to or need to have in place, then you have to make the tough decision, is there going to be something that we're not going to do to preserve those funds?
Nick Gosnell: And that often comes in the form of long-term projects getting either put off for another year or trimmed down or whatever that might look like, because that is a whole lot easier than saying to somebody who had a budgeted expenditure, guess what? You're not going to get to do the thing that we agreed you were going to get to do if, say, you figure out in June that it's not going to work and there's a large expenditure that hasn't happened yet, to walk into a department head's office and say, yeah, you're not going to get, and this would almost never happen, but just as an example to the sheriff's office, yeah, you're not going to get your new vehicle because we don't have the money. That's going to be a lot more difficult than doing it in the budgeting process.
Tim Davies: It's difficult, but that's what a leadership position is about, because sometimes somebody has to make the hard decision to say, I mean, it's just like if you're running your budget at your home. If you're struggling to put groceries on the table, you're not going to run out and buy a new car.
Nick Gosnell: Fair enough. Now, if you had to say just for, I'm going to give you, you have about two minutes left. This is why when you go in and vote on August 6th, you should do so, you should check the box next to my name or fill in the oval or whatever it is. What would you say?
Tim Davies: Well, I would say that my main goal to take this job is to bring some vision to Reno County and to help the constituents of Reno County have representation. I'm an open-minded person who if I get a piece of information, I'm going to consider that piece of information and study that information and try to make the best decision that I can make. I'm not a perfect person. I never will be, but I will do what I feel is in the best interest of everybody in Reno County. Tim Davies is running for Reno County Commission for the northeastern portion of the county. He's running against Ron Vincent in the August primary on the Republican side.
Nick Gosnell: Tim, thank you so much for your time. We sure appreciate it. Thank you.
Tim Davies: Get out and vote, everybody.
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