SALADO — A few weeks ago, Salado village officials made a shocking discovery. It was revealed that the village is in a deeper financial hole than projected. During a town hall meeting at on Tuesday, Mayor Bert Henry announced that the village is projected to be in a $1.
2 million budget deficit at the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year on Sept. 30. During Tuesday’s town hall, Henry pointed out that an escrow check for nearly $1 million was put into the general fund.
The check was sent to the village office in January 2023, but was just discovered by city officials three weeks ago. “It was called to my attention that there was a $945,000 check that came into the Village office. It was deposited into our general fund, but now it’s gone,” Henry said during the town hall meeting.
“That money did not belong to us. That was escrow money for development. Escrow funds cannot be combined with general funds.
” According to Henry, this was just one example of how things were prior to him taking office as mayor. He wanted to make the public aware of this. “Our audit findings said that we were in good shape, but we’re not in good shape,” Henry said.
“When you have one individual that everything funnels through, you really have an almost hostile environment. We sat down and had a conversation with our auditor. Our auditor, accountant and financial advisor were given directives not to speak to each other.
That’s not how you do business. There are things that should’ve been done for years that were not done, and we’re paying for it.” Henry said that going into Tuesday’s town hall that he believes most citizens knew that things were not great, but they didn’t know how bad they were.
He also said that if the tax rate goes through, the budget will be at a $74,000 surplus for the 2025-26 fiscal year. “Tuesday was the first time that residents were aware of this proposal,” Henry said. “We’re going to have more public hearings on this.
When we figured out that this was an issue, I already planned a town hall meeting for residents to discuss this. I wanted to get input for what they wanted to see in the budget. Unfortunately, when I sat down with the accountants, I discovered that it was going to be a different conversation.
The residents were aware that there were some concerns, but they were surprised about how bad it was.” One resident who was upset with the findings was John Newman. He said he and other residents plan to get to the bottom of this.
“I’m still trying to digest it,” Newman said. “It was a shock. I’ve sat through every minute of these meetings for eight years and there was no indication that we were in such a financial state.
I have no words for what has occurred.” Newman hopes more residents will come to the forefront. He believes Tuesday’s town hall was a wake-up call.
“Tuesday was a ‘we told you so’ moment,” Newman said. “We are a residential-heavy community and it is very difficult to run a municipal government out of that. This is a whole different ball game now.
Perhaps now, others will start asking questions. “We got it in front of us and now we know what’s going on. This is not ‘throw in the towel’ time.
We are going to fix this. There are angry people and disappointed people, but there’s no ‘throw in the towel’ mentality.” Henry also pointed out during the town hall that commercial projects will help the village.
He believes that more commercial projects will help the village complete some of the capital improvement projects that lack funding at the moment. “We pulled up the numbers from January to today on how many permits have been issued whether it’s residential or commercial,” Henry said. “There are 24 new construction permits for residential, which is $8.
2 million, and two permits for construction for commercial ($2.6 million). So, 8% of our construction accounts for 31% of the property valuation.
Commercial development is what’s going to pay the bills, and that’s what’s going to continue to keep our community thriving and beautiful. Commercial will help us get out of this bind and help us continue the capital improvement projects.” Henry ran his campaign with the promise of transparency.
“I thought that the only way to fix something like this was to insert myself into this,” Henry said. “From a budgetary standpoint, we’re broke. The money that we thought we had in the budget isn’t there.
We’re projected to end this fiscal year at a $1.2 million deficit. It’s very concerning how we got in that position.
” Henry plans to get to the bottom of this issue. He also hopes that the village can put the past behind. “At this point, it’s really difficult to say how long the overspending has taken place,” Henry said.
“I’m getting the police involved, and if it comes out through their investigation that there’s a criminal element in any of this, we’re prepared. Right now, I’m looking at this as mismanagement, total lack of transparency and gross negligence.” The Village of Salado will have a special-called meeting to approve the proposed budget at 6:30 p.
m. Monday at the village’s municipal building. A regular-scheduled meeting will take place at 6:30 p.
m. Thursday, Aug. 15, with another town hall meeting at 6:30 p.
m. Thursday, Aug. 22.
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