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CROCKETT – During the meeting of the Crockett City Council on Monday, March 28, council members heard the results of the Fiscal Year 2022 Financial audit presented by Axley & Rode.
Molly Abele, with the city’s auditing firm, presented the Fiscal Year 2022 financial audit. A new item this year was a statement of auditing standards to assist with visibility and transparency. The report included a ‘qualified opinion,’ the second highest opinion the firm can give. It says that everything in the audit report is presented fairly in all material respects except for excluded items.
During her report, Abele stated, “Since there is an ongoing investigation with the Economic and Industrial Development Corporation, we were not able to obtain those financials. Accounting principles require that to be in your audit as a reporting unit, and since we were unable to get that, we had to exclude it from the audit opinion. So basically, it says that everything here is good, except for that because we don’t know because we haven’t looked at it.”
Abele reported that the overall net position for the city is just over $11 million. There were a few audit adjustments that the firm had to make, primarily cleanups of old accounts, but Abele said there was less than a 1% change to the financials. Abele also said that she is going to work with accounting to clean up some of the old accounts that don’t belong in the financials. “What you are seeing month-to-month are very good numbers.”
The council also approved the appointment of election judges for the five precincts:
Precinct #1: All Saint’s Episcopal Church Annex
Election Judge: David Minchew, Alternate Judge: Cathy Minchew
Precinct #2: St. Francis Parish Hall
Election Judge: Debra Holt, Alternate Judge: Lael Lewis
Precinct #3: Crockett High School
Election Judge: Paulette McClelland, Alternate Judge: Opal Woolbright
Precinct #4: Crockett Administration Building
Election Judge: Amanda Evans, Alternate Judge: Gloria Davis
Precinct #5: Crockett Sr. Citizen Center
Election Judge: Bill Holcomb, Alternate Judge: James Berry
Because of some concerns over City Administrator John Angerstein as one of the early-voting deputies, the motion and seconded that he be removed.
Next on the agenda was the resolution to approve a grant writer/administrator to assist the city with applying for funding and the administration of a contract. Councilman Darrell Jones questioned whether Butch Calvert was hired as a grant writer, but Angerstein responded, “No. We have no grant administrator or grant writer that is employed by the city. We do have a grant/project manager who helps us manage our internal grants and works with the grant administrators.”
The council continued to discuss Calvert’s role with the city. “Unless he’s been moved to another position,” stated Jones, “that’s what he was hired for. We’re paying him $60k a year.” Councilman Ernest Jackson chimed in stating “Just for clarification, I’d like to understand Mr. Calvert’s position as it relates to grants. Because that was something that was mentioned. I don’t remember the exact wording, but I understood that he was hired to help us with grant writing.”
“That’s right, he was hired to assist us with grants, along with whoever we hire as an administrator or a writer. That’s a pretty niche job.”
“But he doesn’t qualify as an administrator,” said Jackson.
Angerstein replied, “No.”
The council then considered hiring Gary Traylor & Associates as a grant writer to help with the downtown revitalization project to help with sidewalk repairs or infrastructure. While Jones raised the question of whether the grant could be used to help with the Crockett streets, Mayor Dr. Ianthia Fisher explained that the grant they were approving was only for the Texas Department of Agriculture for the Texas Community Block Grant Program Downtown Revitalization Program Fund (CDBG-DRP). The council approved Traylor as the grant writer.
Angerstein presented the request to outsource building plan reviews, permits, and inspections. “Due to the amount of workload that has been taken on by the city – the property cleanup, of code enforcement in helping to beautify our city, we have assigned the majority of that to our code enforcement and our city building official. He covers all our inspections, issuing permits and reviews, and inspecting the work that’s being performed.” Angerstein went on to explain that because of the number of new residents, building commercial buildings, and new construction, he requestioned assistance in covering the inspection side of the code enforcement. Angerstein stated that the city needs someone licensed in these areas and suggested outsourcing building plan reviews, permits, and inspections.
After additional discussion, the council voted for the city manager to explore outside options for assistance with permits and inspections.
The council heard a presentation of the “Keep Crockett Beautiful” program by Scott Shelly, who has offered support to get the application submitted and the program up and running. Instead of being a fully city-operated program, it would be a hybrid partner with the city. After hearing Shelly’s information, the council voted to approve the submission of the application.
Council also voted to move forward with the approval to ratify the agreement with Retail Strategies, LLC for the downtown strategies workshop, market analysis, and downtown strategic plan. Funding for the project was previously approved through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
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