HOUSTON -- Local 2 Investigates how one group of emergency workers is spending your money.

Tuesday night, we showed you how some are questioning a contract between a north Houston emergency medical services department and a private helicopter company. Now we're following tax dollars from your pockets to their offices.

KPRC Local 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis is back with more on your health and your money.

Nothing is free, including emergency service.

People who live in Harris County's Emergency Services District 1 near the Greenspoint and Aldine areas pay taxes to make sure medics are available when they're needed.

So Local 2 Investigates is digging through ESD 1's books to find out how the district is spending your money.

We requested credit card statements and receipts for all of 2008. Food, travel, even a spa … we found it's all in the piles of statements ESD 1 employees use for district purchases.

State Sen. Mario Gallegos said most of it should not be on your dime.

"They're doing a big disservice to that community out there, and my constituents also," said Gallegos.

We discovered ESD 1 employees charged $11,063.93 for food in 2008. The largest tab was $791 at the Aquarium restaurant. The majority of the statements come with no receipts, no explanation of who ate or why you picked up the tab.

In a statement, ESD 1 wrote, "Management has found it cheaper on some occasions to provide meals during heavy workloads than to allow employees to take an hour away from the office for lunch-decreasing productivity."

"It should be marked. It should be tagged, but it wasn't," Sheri Hare told Davis about how the expenses should be marked to give more details about purchases.

Hare should know. She worked in the finance department at ESD 1 for two years before she was fired in 2007.

"Will they say you're a disgruntled ex-employee?" Davis asked Hare.

"Yes," Hare answered.

"Are you?" asked Davis.

"Am I disgruntled?" Hare asked. "No, not really. I never liked the way Jody was controlling the finances."

Hare said she noticed, like we did, that Director Jody Meads and others rarely filled out expense forms to explain charges.

"Did you ever say, "Hey, you need to write on this receipt what you bought and why you bought it?" Davis asked.

"Oh, all the time," said Hare.

There are hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges at Lowe's, Home Depot and other hardware stores. Receipts are attached to some, but there are few explanations of why tools were purchased or where they are now.

Even though the director's credit card limit was $5,000, he sometimes charged over the limit and incurred penalty charges.

"Several times a week, you were paying on that credit card, calling up and transferring money to pay that credit card off," Hare said.

In December, the director charged $23,292.53.

Card statements show ESD 1 spent $22,142.41 on travel last year. Some of those charges paid for Board Commissioner Cathy Sunday to fly to San Diego, but we discovered you also paid for her husband and adult daughter's tickets at $494.50 each.

One of the most surprising expenses of all, we wouldn't have noticed if Hare hadn't told us.

Taxpayers paid for her Lasik eye surgery for nearly $4,000.

"Did getting Lasik eye surgery enable you to perform your job better for taxpayers?" Davis asked Hare.

"No," she replied.

Another ESD 1 employee received Lasik, too. Yet another had cosmetic dental work done on taxpayers' dime.

ESD 1 told us it created a special account to help its employees with medical procedures not covered by insurance.

Some people who live in ESD 1 say they shouldn't have to cover it either.

"If it's coming out of their pocket, that's fine," said Steve Clayton when Local 2 Investigates told him about the expenses. "But if it's coming out of taxpayers' pockets, that's a whole different ballgame."

"Do you think taxpayers in ESD 1 are getting a fair shake?," Davis asked ESD 1’s attorney Mark Smith.

"I can't comment on those sorts of questions," he answered. "I've just not been given that sort of latitude."

"I think that says a lot," Davis replied. "The commissioners don't want to comment on that? They won't allow you all to comment on that? But shouldn't they because you all get paid with tax dollars, right?”

"That's correct, yeah," Smith answered.

Those tax dollars pay ESD 1 attorney Mark Smith $150,000 a year.

Meads will pull in $143,000 this year, and Director of Finance Habib Kobeissi makes $140,000.

"Give me a break," Gallegos responded. "The fire chief here has over 4,000 employees and makes the same amount of money."

Actually the fire chief of the entire Houston Fire Department earns less than all three, with a salary of $134,753.

He is not eligible for a bonus, but ESD 1 gave out $64,238 in bonuses last year. The director of finance earned a $20,000 bonus.

"Do you think that's fair?" Davis asked Kobeissi. "You know you make more than the Houston fire chief."

"I'm qualified," replied Kobeissi.

ESD 1's Board of Commissioners approves the salaries and bonuses, but there is no other state agency that oversees taxing districts like ESD's once they're created.

Gallegos said that needs to change.

"You know, I sit on a committee that forms these ESD's and we never think about oversight when we're forming these ESD's to protect lives and our property," said Gallegos.

Since we brought this to Gallegos' attention, he said he is authoring a bill that, if passed, would appoint county commissioners or a state agency to oversee all emergency services districts.

If you live in ESD 1, you can vote for the district's commissioners. They have run unopposed since those positions became elected seats in 2007.