Oct 21, 2009
A few words here to counter the misinformation and radical comments by the few persons who believe that I, your council and those persons working in City Hall are incompetent. Since I and your city council terminated the employment of Diane Evans from the the job of “city secretary” on July 20, there have been three other persons besides myself and a city council member working diligently to straighten out the disarrayed mess we found. Documents essential for daily operation are difficult to locate and in some instances do not exist far as we can determine.
An Internal Revenue agent came to Bartlett in June 2009 and made a “compliance check.” Well, it has been found that the City owes a substantial amount of “back taxes” to the IRS. This money is the amount withheld from each employee’s paycheck that is then supposed to be sent to the IRS; except that all money owed has not been paid the IRS for several quarters. The City has paid all of the outstanding taxes owed for a number of recent quarters. Our city attorney is currently working with the IRS to determine and reduce a larger amount owed on earlier violations.
Also, a new fiscal year budget for October 1, ‘09 through September 1, ‘10 has not been created and here is why. As advised by the city attorney, when a city does not produce such a new budget for the new fiscal year, the previous year’s budget automatically becomes the new budget by state law. I (city budget officer) and the council have not created a new budget because of the poor filing and record keeping in City Hall. It is my ultimate responsibility, but is first the primary responsibility of the City Secretary who was well paid for that duty.
To maintain an accurate record of income and expenditures, the total revenue for the last budget year (revenue from electric, water, sewer, garbage, ad valorem--property taxes--etc.) are not readily available. How can a budget be composed when we have no way to determine the amount of revenue last year, then determine what can be expected for this new year? Further, last year’s budget was not maintained whatsoever. Not one amendment was made because a record was not kept as to what was paid and to what agency/person. For instance, there are no records readily available showing what was paid to Act Pipe Company, Wal-Mart, AT&T, Atmos Energy, etc., and so on. Other than the bank statements themselves, but you get the picture. The only way to determine income and expenses from last year will be to review all bank statements and invoices since last November and that is a mountain of a job. It is being done but there is a long way to go. Therefore, I cannot produce a new budget/amendments at this time and cannot even give a definite “timeline” for such. However, we are working hard to make it happen. Once I know the revenue and where all such revenue went, then I can propose specific amendments to this budget for council review at workshops to be scheduled. Anything prior to that would be “guesswork” which wold really excite some citizens.
There are 34 different sources of revenue in the budget, some minor and others major and all contribute to the total. There arer 234 line items in the budget detailing where this revenue went. Neither deposits nor expenditures were maintained current in the last fiscal year budget document.
On to the tax rate. The tax rate (your property taxes) were not raised by the City this year nor last year. There were no hearings on the tax rate last year or this year because the rate has not been raised. (And by the way, this is the first time I’ve heard people complain about the tax rate NOT being rasied). The City adopted the rollback rate. The effective rax rate was higher than the rollback rarte this year. To adopt the effective tax rate, the City would have had to hold hearings to increase the tax rate. According to the Comptroller’s Truth-In-Taxation manual, the rollback rate is the tax rate that provides the City with about the same amount of tax revenue it spent the previous year for day-to-day operations, plus an extra 8 percent increase for those operations plus sufficient funds to pay debts in the coming year. We get the total indebtedness of the City from First State Bank Central Texas (Granger) then pass that information to the Bell County Tax Appraisal District Office in Belton. The appraisal district does the actual calculations and then publishes the results in a newspaper (Temple Daily Telegram this year as well as last year and the year before that) which was Saturday, September 12, 2009. Should the information we get from FSBCT in Granger be erroneous/inaccurate then a problem will arise next year. But the City has been paying the same amount on the loans from the bank for a few years and the Appraisal District has assured me several times (even calling me at home) that the calculations are correct.
The City has not been audited for four consecutive years. Why? Records essential for an auditor to do such work have not been nor are they currently filed in any appropriate manner. Financial material pertaining to an audit are not readily available, and no auditor is going to spend days or weeks looking for such. Our auditor has already told us as much. I cannot at this time even make a guess as to when the City will be prepared for an audit, but we working diligently so that an audit can be done. The City is currently following the auditor’s recommendations for getting the financial files in order, and as soon as the records are in order, the most recent fiscal year will be audited. then we will work back to previous years.
Last but not least (and I’m not even going to mention the condition of the Municipal Court), I have been told by a few citizens that the city secretary job is too much for one employee. I agreed and have agreed with this for a long time. But every time I brought this up, it was strongly rejected by Diane Evans. Looking at the state of the files and financial records of the city (unpaid payroll taxes, undocumented financial transactions, no maintained filing system), it does not make sense to me that she would reject help.
In closing, I do acknowledge that I, as mayor, have the ultimate responsibility for the inexcusable condition in the City Hall city secretary function. I, and I hope you, the good citizens of Bartlett, also accept the fact that this was all the job of the former city secretary who was well paid and additionally paid well at time and a half overtime. I ask you to not take all the “tripe” and “poison” spewed out of some citizens as gospel. Ask me or some other city council member for truthful, accurate information. Thank you for yoru time and rest assured progress is being made daily despite the negative efforts of some who seem determined to derail our efforst. Their motivation??? Also, I will work to make sure this does not happen again.
P. S.--I own a few minor shares in the Prudential Insurance Agency Company. Does that meal all employees of that company are my employees? How about if I own any shares in Wal-Mart of any other corporation, large or small? How ridiculous!
(As the sign along the road to Davilla read years ago . . . “Bartlett-Best Little Town in Texas” was then and still is far as I’m concerned. Most folks won’t remember that though, it goest back into the ‘50s and ‘60s.)
Arthur J. White, Mayor
City of Bartlett, Texas
Debbie McKeon
Tribune-Progress
