Legislative Joint Auditing
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Members if you would start to get your seats we're gonna get started right at 9 o'clock two minute warning.
OK members one minute warning now find your seats please. Oh my god
so we're going to call the legislative audit joint audit committee to order the chair sees decorum and our first order of business is the adoption of the minutes of the June62025 meeting. do we have any questions I hear a motion already any questions? If not do I hear a second all those in favor let it be known by eye. any opposed no Minutes are adopted right we're going to go right
into the adoption of the reports the first one is the executive committee senator deeses I believe is going to do that report.
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
4:45
Thank you Mr Chair. the executive committee met Thursday July10th 2025 and adopted the minutes from the meeting that were held the past minutes that were held on June52025.taff reported to the committee the audit and the special reports scheduled to be presented to the standing committees and the full legislative joint auditing committee this month. Staff also
noted reports that are anticipated to be completed soon in new business a request for a special report regarding fiscal impact statements was deferred until September meeting to allow the chairs to work with staff to develop a scope for the report. A request was approved for staff to perform audits for theblytheville school district for fiscal years 2024 and2025. the approval of the 2024 audit was an exception from the committee's normal practice of requiring entities receiving a private audit to be to be up to date with their audits before
accepting of the agreement the exception was made because of the districct district had been placed under the state's control. A request was deferred for a report regarding UAMS Washington County lease agreement. in other business legislative auditor Kevin White gave the committee an update regarding payments to legislators legislative audit will now pay members in the same manner they're paid in their respective chambers with no additional business to discuss the meeting was adjourned the next meeting of the committee is scheduled for Thursday, September 11th,2025 at the or at the call of the chairs. I move for adoption of this report
OK members thank you senator dees you've heard the report and we have a motion to adopt the report. do we have a second? have a second any discussion on the motion the only discussion that I will add is this affects your pace so it is going to be direct deposit unless you otherwise note to staff and so be patient with them as we transition to that system and with that all those in favor say
aye any opposed no motion is adopted. the next report is the standing committee on counties and municipalities and I believepresentative Cooper you are recognized to represent that report
Representative Cameron Cooper
Unverified
6:53
Thank you Mr Chair. The committee adopted the minutes of the meeting held June5,2025. committee also voted to send the letters to the three cities with delinquent 2023 audit reports indicating a deadline of September 1st 2025 to have those reports filed Additionally the committee voted
to notify the state treasurer to withhold turnback revenues from the44 water and sewer entities with delinquent audit reports for 2022. as required by Act453 of2023, the committee voted to notify an additional66 water in y entities with delinquent reports for 2023 of a September7,2025 deadline to submit these reports the committee considered a request from the city of Norman to repay less than 10% of general revenues for amounts owed to the street fund
as required by Arkansas code 277207. the committee approved the request from Norman to repay $200 monthly from the water department first and then the general fund until the balance is paid in full. the committee reviewed 11 deferred reports and 269 current reports Officials from e entities were present to address repeat findings non previously deferred reports were filed and two were deferred of the 269 current reports reviewed 15 referred to
prosecuting attorneys and the attorney general and three were certified to the governmental bonding board the committee filed 263 current reports including the report for Garland County with an objection to the report being noted. The objection included a reference to an attorney general's opinion that was issued after the report's release date. the community also deferred six reports to allow officials to answer questions or provide further documentation at a future meeting. Mr Chair, this completes this report and I move
for adoption. Thank you. you've heard the report and we have a motion to adopt the report. do we have a second? see a second any discussion if not all those in favor say aye any opposed no motion is adopted. the next report is the standing report on the committee on educational institutions and I believepresentative
Duke is going to do that sopresentative Duke you are recognized
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
9:16
Thank you Mr Chair. the committee reviewed70 audit reports consisting of school districts educational cooperatives and higher education institutions for the year ended June302024. Officials from school district were present to present to answer questions from the committee related to findings in their audit report which was deferred from the June meeting. the pine bluff school district auto report was certified to the governmental bonding board and five school district audit reports Clarendon entry, Harrisburg, Highland and Pulaski County Special had findings that
were referred to lial prosecuting attorney and attorney general the audits of pine bluff Brinkley and Dearmount Judy school districts were deferred to the September meeting so that school officials could be present to answer questions from the committee related to the repeat findings in their respective audit reports the committee filed6 7 audit reports and deferred three audit reports that were brought before it. I moved to adopt this report. Thank you Representative Duke. you've heard the report and we have a motion
to adopt the report. Do I have a second? have a second. any discussion
all those in favor say aye any opposed Motion is adopted the last report is the standing committee on state agencies I
believepresentative Unger is going to present this reportpresentative Unger you are recognized
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
10:35
Thank you Mr Chair.9 reports on we were on the committee's agenda yesterday re reports with the following findings were presented Arkansas PBS made incorrect career service payments to three employees
the public employee retirement system apers committed more funds to a partial equity ownership agreement than what was approved by the legislative council and finally the treasurer of the state did not have sufficient controls in place to prevent redemption of two fraudulent warrants totaling over613,000 dollars and also paid 12 employees in excess of a line item salary appropriations Various agency staff members
were present to report on how the agencies intend to address the audit findings and to answer the committee's questions During the meeting the committee filed 9 reports. I moved to adopt this report Thank you Representative Unger. you've heard
the report and we have a motion to adopt the report. do we have a second? Have
a second any discussion? no discussion all those in favor say aye opposed Motion is adopted. right the
next item on the agenda is review of a special report which is the disposition of matters referred to prosecuting attorneys and the attorney general for the period January1st2023 through December31st2023 that report was early released on February 19,2025. michelle actuallyley is going to present this report and so Micchelle is
here. Micchelle you are recognized to present that report chair. this report is issued
Speaker 29
12:18
to provide this committee a summary
of the disposition of matters referred to the prosecuting attorneys and the attorney general's office for calendar year 2023. Arkansas code0-4419 requires the legislative auditor to notify the appropriate prosecuting attorney of transactions reflecting unauthorized disbursements or unaccounted for funds the legislative auditor also notifies and cooperates with the appropriate prosecuting attorney on all matters that appear to involve a criminal offense. Furthermore, this code section requires the legislative
auditor to report findings related to a prosecuting attorney's office to the attorney general for review and appropriate action. This code section also directs prosecuting attorneys to report to this committee by June30th of each year the status or disposition of any matter referred to them the previous year. Act6:32 of the regular session of 2023 which was effective August of 2023 amended Arkansas code 104419 to require the legislative order to refer to
the attorney general all matters that were referred to a prosecuting attorney. Matters were referred to both the prosecuting attorney and the attorney general from August through December of 2023 and are identified within the report with an asterisk Arkansas code 21-2-708 directs the legislative auditor to notify the Arkansas governmental bonding board of audit reports reflecting improper transactions for which a public official officer or employee may be liable. The bond board determines whether a loss is
covered by the Arkansas self-insured Fidelity bond program. Entities are required to meet a $2500 deductible per occurrence before payment is made. The fidelity bomb program coverage limit is300,000 dollars per occurrence. Examples of matters referred include receipts not deposited missing assets, unauthorized undocumented disbursements unauthorized salary payments unauthorized bank withdrawals improper loan of entity credit, conflict of interest issues
noncompliance with the public purpose doctrine and potential violation of the speed trap law. as shown on the screen using the 18th west judicial district as an example, each judicial district's report page includes a map identifying the counties located in the district in addition matters referred are detailed individually by the counties in the judicial district the prosecuting attorney, the governmental entity involved the year the matter was reported the status and payment by the bond trust
fund when applicable. Presented in exhibit3 on pages6 and7 is a summary of disposition reports organized by judicial district shown on this slide is the portion of the exhibit for the 1st through the3rd judicial districts as well as the total for all districts also shown on the slide criminal charges were filed in 17 of the143 matters referred7 cases are pending in court and the remaining 10 cases in which a conviction was obtained and sentence imposed
listed by judicial district in exhibit four on page 8. this slide shows the information from exhibit4 regarding court ordered sentences defendants entered guilty pleas in 9 cases and a jury found one defendant guilty. Restitution was ordered in 8 out of the 10 cases and defendants were sentenced to probation in7 cases while the remaining three were incarcerated. audit costs were included as part of restitution in two of the cases. This concludes my presentation
on the disposition of matters referred by this committee to the state's prosecuting attorneys and the attorney general for calendar year 2023. Representatives from the office of the prosecutor coordinator and the attorney general's office are here to answer any committee questions.
Thank you Michelle committee you've heard the report and as you heard we have representatives from the office of prosecutor coordinator and the attorney general's office available are there any questions for staff or witnesses regarding this report
p re s ent ative Duke you are
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
16:38
recognized thank you Mr Chair. I do have a couple of questions for I guess think for staff so there are a couple of items in here I I wrote down page41 but there are I think a50 and a couple of others throughout the packet where it says it there was a request for the state police to investigate or for law enforcement that was down I think on page 52. is there is that the it looks to me like that's been a while is there an update? are they going
to investigate it? do we know the status on that or do we circle back at that later and look at that and then I've got a couple of other questions they're kind of don't know if you want me to hit them all now or just I
can get back in the queue whatever you want me to do right now
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
17:21
you're the only one so I would say continue on so that's the one question that have and if you want to answer that one I can get to
the other two after that whatever y'all want to do so this this document is is ur r ent ly being updated. I mean we constantly update as we
receive new information. so we are currently working on matters that were referred in calendar year 2024. and that will also include any matters that were not resolved in this report that I'm presenting today and that report will be presented to you hopefully at the end of this year. So with anything that's not resolved we will always follow up until we get a case closed thank you that's helpful probably
answer my next question which was I think it's page73
we're just talked about restitution that they were going to send a letter I'm trying to get there myself. and that was again the question that I had is was the letter sent and mean do we know that and I'm guessing you're saying if you know it would already be entered in here if they were going to have restitution made. and that may actually may be back on page 53 because there's another one that had that too al can't read my own handwriting.
I don't not sure how to say the city of Caleon is on page 54. thank you. where it says they were prosecuting attor will be sending the letter of caution and if the funds are not reimbursed in a timely manner the the or for this matter law enforcement for investigation and prosecutions and I'm assuming this is the last update we have on it that's correct
so that would be one that we would consider under review so we would continue to follow up on that one. OK. thank you
right. any other questions? If not then do right if
not do we have a motion to file the report you have a second any discussion on the motion if not all those in favor say aye any opposed no motion passes right the next item on the agenda is the city
of west Helena the regulatory basis of financial statements and other reports for the period ending December31st2023 and Jamie Bass is going to present this report so Misss Bass you are recognized to present
that report. Thank you Mr Chair. This presentation covers the audit
Speaker 59
20:01
report for the city of HelenaWst Helena for the year ended december31st,2023.
at its meeting held last month the standingittee on counties and municipalities deferred the report to this committee meeting and requested that the legislative auditor subpoena city officials to present to to be present to answer questions located in eastern Arkansas, Helena West Helena is the county seat of Phillips County and operates under the mayor council form of government. The city council consists of six members who govern the city who govern the city which has a population of approximately 9500
This report contained two material weakness findings first, Arkansas code requires that city management maintain an adequate accounting system to ensure proper safeguarding of assets. We noted a lack of adequate controls as journal entries were not reviewed and approved by an employee other than the preparer. These deficiencies were due to a lack of management oversight and could lead to misappropriation of the city's assets. A similar finding was issued in the prior report. Secondly, Arkansas code requires the city council to approve an
annual budget and city management to function within that budget. However, due to the lack of management oversight, street fund and landfill fund expenditures exceeded appropriations by approximately424,524,000 respectively. Also general fund and street fund budgeted revenues exceeded actual revenues by approximately388,0206,000 respectively. the effect of this overspending constitutes a control deficiency
and a threat to efficient stable operations to the city leading to the second material weakness finding as a result of overspending the general fund street fund and landfill fund had deficit balances at December31st2023 of h73,192,000 and239,000 respectively. Another factor contributing to this deficit was various accounts payable in the general fund tolling over a million dollars. This included
over633,000 for payroll taxes 140,000 for housing of the city's prisoners at the county jail and over 263,000 of various other vendors. in addition to the general fund deficit fund balance, failure to pay retirement system payments in 2024 resulted in the loss of the city's general revenue turnback received from the state as of the report date, payments to the IRS have not occurred since August 2023. Furthermore, the city's inability to pay its
debts timely led to late payment fees, bank overdraft charges, utility shutoff notices, repossessions and some vendors requiring cash payment on delivery. the remainder of this presentation covers the 11 management letter findings issued for the city. Findings referred to the prosecuting attorney and attorney general are noted on the slides. 9 unauthorized withdrawals totaling over7,300 dollars were made from the city's bank account between May and July of 2023. The bank discovered ive of these withdrawals and returned3,300
dollars to the city in June and $1500 in July of 2023. because the city did not dispute the remaining four withdrawals almost $2500 could not be recovered. as shown on this slide a review of credit card transactions selected for testing revealed that supporting documentation was not provided for numerous transactions for the city clerk and mayor during the four month period reviewed for fiscal year 2023 in the two month period reviewed for fiscal year 2024. Subsequent to field work, the
city provided some documentation not previously available. However, the validity of transactions that remain undocumented could not be determined During disbursement testing we noted multiple issues the city received a50,000 dollars donation from a nonprofit organization to assist with purchasing an animal shelter building. However, the building was subsequently repossessed due to the city not paying the balance owed Additionally, adequate supporting documentation was not provided for tested disbursements of613 dollars in noncompliance with Arkansas code.
The city also paid approximately7,500 dollars to two vendors before work was completed in conflict with the Arkansas constitution as shown on this slide the city failed to make payments tolling over $91,000 as specified in five finance purchase agreements. These payments were for police body cameras, a truck, two dozers and an excavator. a similar finding was issued in the prior report. as of the report date, several of the items had been repossessed.
Regarding the city landfill, we noted that the supervisor prepared and approved his own time sheets and was paid over $26,000 in overtime. Additionally, the the supervisor and scale operator who are spouses occupied an RV connected to city utilities. compensation related to this personal use of city services was neither calculated nor reported on their IRSWT forms. as detailed on this slide, the city made payments totaling almost4,000 dollars for related
party transaction transactions without authorizing ordinances. This is an apparent conflict with Arkansas code. a similar finding was noted in the prior two reports. During testing of compensated absences we noted that of the five employees tested,2 employees were missing from the compensated absences list and the remaining three had incorrect rates of pay. The list also contained negative amounts for4 employees although employees do not appear to have been overpaid. Additionally, the governing body reviewed the prior year audit
report but took no action on the action on the findings and recommendations in a parent noncompliance with Arkansas code During our review of payroll, we noted the following An employee did not prepare time sheets or leave slips as required by the city's policy total overtime paid exceeded the budgeted amount by over300,000 dollars and the city also incurred penalties and interests totaling over 82,000 due to lack of timely payroll tax emission as discussed on the following slides.
Monthly remittances to DFA were not submitted timely resulting in penalties and interests of over 18,000 dollars. DFA could assess additional penalties and interests due to late filings and unpaid balances of h18,000 as of April2024. The city entered into a payment plan with DFNA to pay the balance over 25 months including assessed penalties and interest as a report day, the city made 8 payments tolling over46,000 dollars. Additionally withholdings and matching reported on Iris form
941 were not submitted timely resulting in penalties and interests of62,000 dollars. The IRS could assess additional penalties and interest due to late filings and unpaid balances of over500,000 dollars as of December31st,2023. We also noted the city owes over $12,000 for taxes due on IRS form 941 for the tax period ending June30,2021, which resulted in interest of 1700 dollars. The IRS could assess additional penalties and
interest and as of report day the city had made no payments on this This slide represents the last two management letter findingse allowance payments to the mayor totaling $10,000 were not reported on his IRS form W2. Street fund expenditures exceeded appropriations by over424,000 in noncompliance with Arkansas code. a similar finding was issued in the prior two reports. Mr Chair, this concludes my presentation. Management
responses are included in the report and city officials are present to respond to committee questions Thank
you Misss Bass committee you've heard the report and we do have representatives from the city of hele in the west tunnel
and available I think what I'm gonna do though first since that was a a a lot of information
to see if there's any questions for staff before we make available the the witnesses so
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
28:32
meeks you are recognized for question. Thank thank you Mr
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
28:35
Chairman. So question I have is on the the landfill on the street fund we had these you know almost half a million dollars of overpayments what's the what's the total budget on those two in the course of the year for the city Any idea Give us a second they're going to look it up.
Speaker 59
29:06
the total for the total expenditures for the street fund OK. the budget was 1 point.1 million approximately 1.2 million for the street fund and the landfill fund is aggregated and we don't have that information available at this time but we can get it I'm
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
29:27
just curious to see how big of a problem what percentage that you know500,000 dollars overpayment was for example if they only had a million dollar budget
50000 $0 is a huge overpayment whereas if they had a5 million dollars budget it would be a smaller percent so that's kind of why I was
Speaker 59
29:47
curious about for the street fund it's approximately37% right thank
you Representative beatty you're recognized thank you Mr Chair have a
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
30:00
question if the mayor is here in attendance today. yes sir he is. I was trying to
Speaker 90
30:12
get staff first but he is for for the mayor
right he is he is first up on on the witness when we get there. Which I do not see any other questions in the queue of other members so at this point in time we would call Christopherran Franklin to the stand here in the middle
if you would when you get there if you would remain standing we're going to swear you in so if you could reach down and he's going to help you there turn the mic on if you would for the record state your name your employer and your position Christopher Franklin
Speaker 96
31:06
held in the west hele the former mayor right and if you
would raise your right hand do you solemnly swear or affirm
that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth right thank you you may
be seated and we will recognize Representative Beatty for his
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
31:28
question. thank you Mr Chair Mayor appreciate you being here today. I guess my question goes back to the first response on the audit where you under the report on internal control over financial reporting where you respond this finding should not fall upon me as the mayor. could you tell this committee what
your understanding of the job description of mayor entails and what those responsibilities are Yes sir as under the advice
Speaker 97
31:53
of my counsel I have two cases pending so I won't be able to answer any of your questions so you you can't tell me
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
32:01
what you thought your job description was not at this time well I I appreciate you coming anyway so just
just to clarify what you what you just said you you said under advice of counsel with
pending cases cases litigation you won't be able to answer any questions Senator Gilmore has
a question he may No you already asked it so I I
Speaker 105
32:28
guess I'm I'm I'm done OK Representative beatty you're back in the queue
you're recognized just to follow up on
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
32:38
his statement can you enlighten us on what pending cases you have outstanding right now my attorney's not here so I
Speaker 97
32:44
won't be able to enlighten you on that
as well again thanks for your presence here today do
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
32:52
we have anyone else from the city here
Mr Chairman? Yes sir we have the city clerk Sandy Ramsey. the
city treasurer derek Turner, A andP director Helen Halbert and a council member John Etherly who's also an AMP chair so what I'd like to do is maybe call them up one at a time and swear them in and then we just released this gentleman
Speaker 111
33:13
Yes, I'm sorry you are dismissed thank you all
Representedalby I missed you in the queue. did you have
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
33:29
a question for thank you Mr Chair. I actually have a question for staff and I'm sorry I
didn't buzz in during that time but I was kind of thinking about it if I understand the report that you just gave that there Accounts payable or their debt grew from one point
3613 $6 million that's now grown to upwards to $2 million Did I have I done my math correct on that if the staff could answer for me, I'm looking at page5. they significantly overspent their budget by a million over a million dollars and then when you start adding everything up now they've significantly overspent by nearly $2 million Somebody just it it I mean
that's kind of rough numbers but could
somebody that have I understood the report correctly looking
Speaker 59
34:41
at the finance the last five years for 2023 the total liabilities was 1 point a little over 1 million and then in 22 it was368,000. OK but when it's approximately
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
34:58
so what's their total debt I guess is
my question because it looks like it's going up and up and up and there aren't any revenues or or at least the revenues are staying stable but they keep overspending can somebody just give us an idea of what that total debt is that city I mean I'm concerned about all of
Speaker 80
35:20
this for for 2023 it's approximately 1.6 million. OK so we're we're heading
Speaker 66
35:25
up upwards to $2 million correct in which
that does not include short term financing so
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
35:31
if you included all of that my figures roughly are correct around $2 million now yes ma'am thank you Mright you are
Speaker 128
35:44
recognized one item I also wanted to point out or draw to your attention is in the financial statements on page 27 we have a subsequent event note and it includes some additional debts that were taken on even after our fiscal year
end might be helpful to provide some of the information me just reading the note again it looks like on June 152024 they executed a $226,000 finance purchase agreement for the purchase of an excavator on June 15,2024 execute a675,000 dollars finance purchases agreement for the purchase of a dozer on September 12,2024 executed a389,000 dollars finance purchase agreement for the purchase of a fire bumper and then on January17,2025
execute $805,000 agreement for the purchase of two garbage trucks and one knuckle boom truck and the total I have beside
Speaker 129
36:38
me says 2 million dollars. do you have a follow up I'm sorry I'll get out of the
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
36:52
queue because I see other people have lit up but in that regard as I understood that on page 27
all of that equipment got repossessed isn't that correct and so they don't even have that equipment but they've made all these Purses are are ynn lease type stuff correct?
Speaker 128
37:17
but my understandingpresentativealby is again though the equipment previously was repossessed this was new equipment that was purchased too so
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
37:23
this is additional expense that they have now taken on in addition to what they spent that got repossessed correct? OK I'm just
trying to understand get my mind around it. I mean I majored in English and not accounting. and on page 28 and this is for staff too and then I Mr Chair I'll get out of the queue. I'm sorry. On page28 on the the going concerns and everything all of this came under The mayor's watch are the former mayor I don't know what his title is considering the the
legal position he's in but this all happened Just recently this is not going back5 or6 years, correct? so
Speaker 128
38:16
the items we spoke to in the report are for december 2023 or for January1 through December31st2020 think so those matterers are all underneath the current administration. thank you thank you for clearing
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
38:27
that up for me rightpresentativeladyman you are
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
38:35
recognized for your question. thank you Mr Chairman. I think this is for staff but I didn't understand Mr Franklin
there is did he say he was the former mayor? Yes, that's that's how he introduced himself a he's not working with
the city now not currently there I understand there's current litigation in two cases and so we did not get any of the details of that
So who is the mayor now? Is there a mayor suspect that that some of our other witnesses can probably answer that. I
don't know the answer to that I think I think there is a pending appointment I don't know if that's if they've
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
39:25
decided on anyone but I I understood I'd like to ask staff if if the mayor resigns or is removed who is automatically the interim mayor.
Speaker 129
39:42
so my understanding is there's not an interim mayor I will say a little bit it's
Speaker 128
39:47
kind of getting outside the wheelhouse of where we're at I think maybe some questions potentially for some of the individuals who are still with the city to be able to answer my understanding is there's not like an immediate interim mayor there's a process to replace a mayor it's
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
40:01
my understanding and I haven't looked at the law in a while but either the recorder or the treasurer autoutomatically becomes the mayor because you have to have somebody running in the city
Speaker 128
40:14
do you know who that is? I'm sorry I would I would defer to yourself or others in that matter that's kind of outside of what we typically have to deal with and I'm not
an expert inential can ask the folks that are here right
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
40:32
thank you Representative y you are recognized yes sir really sir this is more or less a question just don't understand you know if you had a budget for sayy a road fund and then they go into contracts
that exceed500,000 dollars it sounds like someone was not keeping checks and balances sir. I wish we could get an answer on that Well
I think we're gonna have witnesses and we can we can ask them
that question. right Senatorirrvin you're recognized Thank you
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
41:04
Mr Chair so the man that's that testified was the former mayor. OK. where did he go?
he left the building there's no requirement that that these witnesses stay to answer all of our questions in case other questions may arise there's no requirements from legislative audit to require these people to stay through the entire report I I would think that there should be that would be a suggestion but I have questions for the witnesses from the city who now are left to remain to answer the questions believe he
made it clear that he was
under advice of counsel was not going to answer any questions no matter what
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
41:53
they were that's fine but he could sit there and say that repeatedly to the questions that we should be able to allow to be asked so as as other questions arise from the testimony of the other city officials so it's my suggestion that if you have a report of this magnitude that anybody that is here must stay through the entirety of the report out of just sheer respect of their
constituents in this body and the people of the state of Arkansas that would be appropriate ha vi or for anybody to display I would think. but I have questions specifically for the people of the city as to why and how and when they knew that this was happening and if they did anything about it OK thank you
Senator Irvin for your comments and I think with that no one else is in the queue and so we will start with the city clerk Sandy Ramsey
if she is here could approach the witness table Miss Ramsey if you would stop at one of those mics and and remain standing and introduce yourself. we will swear you in as well. right if you would raise your
right hand do you solemnly swear we're a firm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you you may be seated. right members
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
43:44
who's upp Senator Irvin you are recognized. Thank you thank you thank you ma'am for being here. I appreciate that you're here. appreciate the you're listening through the testimony. I would
just like I'm way over here ma'am. sorry I know we're it's hard to find us thank you for being here. I would just like to hear your perspective about the report, what you have you at any point did you see that things were going awry. were you able to to lend any kind of advice as to if you did see things going awry. did you lend any advice or how how did you handle the
the situation in the report that we've got here before
Speaker 163
44:28
us we kept the the administration and the city council apprised of the debt Usually I would send out maybe every couple of weeks or every month to give them a report they get their financial report prepared by our treasurer that shows our indebtedness and all of the purchases that you're talking about the lease purchases for the new equipment that's all approved by the city
council after a presentation is made and then it's in the hands of the treasurer and myself to try and find the money to pay it after it's approved but they were aware of the indebtedness and many of those bills go back to 22 or 23 well 22 when we encouraged some of them we have very little revenue coming in a lot of it goes out in payroll we were beginning to work on a plan
to get everything out of debt it's going to take some severity and a lot of cutting and the removal and employees or whatever to get ourselves out of debt but we they are going to prepare a plan of well I think one was submitted to you it could we I didn't work on that plan but it can needs to be a more in depth plan but like I say our population is dropping people are moving not because of anything we're doing
but we have an aging population we have people moving for a better jobs and we just don't have the revenue sales tax dollars and that's where we get the bulk of our revenue each month it might run anywhere from Maybe320,000 dollars to maybe425 that comes in on the 25th of the month and every two weeks I usually have a payroll net payroll of maybe $140,000 so I'm left with very little funds to
pay bills with but we do the best
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
46:32
that we can do you have a you have a net payroll of $140,000 every two weeks
Speaker 163
46:38
because in our city a lot of our payroll is fired police we've been short staffed in the police department which would incurred a lot of overtime and but we do know that we're going to have to do some severe cutting and a lot of the departments we'll make they will make the new mayor will make those decisions hopefully
along with input from the treasurer and the city clerk and but like I say some months I might not have but maybe you know60 or70,000 dollars to pay bills with we do get some sanitation fees in in midmon we've had to assist our water department and paying a lot of their bills because they've had a lot of issues but they are getting funding now thankfully from the state and the government where we can get
some grants to get our water system back up and running and in accordance and
Speaker 166
47:35
give our people what they need but that's in the process so we hope to get reimbursed from the water department for a lot of that money and that'll help us pay a lot of our outstanding debt some of our outstanding debt is
Speaker 163
47:50
like annual payments of maybe3040 1000 that's why our revenue looks so bad but I do realize we're behind in a lot of things
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
48:02
but we're working on it on the on the on the grant money that the state of Arkansas gave for your water system what was there conversations or is there any type of a recognition of the debt that the city incurred in other areas and in that grant I don't believe
Speaker 168
48:19
so the treasure could better tell you what was in the grant yes ma'am
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
48:24
and then one final question where where and I haven't looked at your plan but
where we're in your are they looking at cutting where
I guess where is the majority of where you might be too large in personnel
Speaker 163
48:46
audit was of the things was you know cutting some staff cutting some services the we had hoped to sell our hospital and that was going
Speaker 166
48:56
to help pay off a lot of our debt but that deal didn't make
it and but we're just going to have to take
Speaker 163
49:06
a hard look at things and I'm sure our citizens understand what we're going through and they're very helpful to us but
Speaker 166
49:13
we're just going to have to cut employees and cut services and publicly cut benefits maybe cut back on our time and things like that thank you for the question thank you so much for being here
Representative ladyman you are recognized. Thank you Mr
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
49:39
Chairman ma'am I'm over here I didn't catch you you're the clerk is that correct clerk clerk So who is the acting mayor
Speaker 163
49:50
now? According to the attorneys in the absence of a mayor, the city clerk handles the day to
Speaker 166
49:56
day operations and I work closely with the city attorney the
treasurer and the one of our council persons who is here who is also an attorney to make the best decisions but as far as making any contracts entering anything major we're not doing anything right now until we have a mayor and what is that process the governor will be appointing a
Speaker 163
50:26
mayor interim mayor to serve out this term and but we haven't heard anything yet so are y'all
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
50:32
still having council meetings we are
Speaker 163
50:35
we have two a months and but we haven't heard anything yet so are y'all still having council meetings
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
50:45
who is Don Eelly he's an attorney also on the council's council member can he make decisions on financial decisions on I mean you all have to stop the bleeding here and it needs to be done quickly. Is there anybody that can make those decisions right now as far as you know cutting personnel I know that's difficult to do but the sooner you do that the better is there anybody that can make that
Speaker 166
51:05
decision right now we've been advised not to make any major decisions like that we have stopped hiring we're not except for police which we have a shortage we hopefullypefully we'll have a new mayor soon the the attorneys felt like it would be better for the new mayor to be totally involved but we have decreased spending except in emergency situations we've stopped overtime except in
emergency situations so we're trying to cut back what we can on
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
51:41
our own is that your city attorney that
Speaker 166
51:44
advised you to do that was the city attorney along with our attorneys from
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
51:50
the Arkansas municipal league So are there any things that that you can do to cut expenses like office supplies and we're not buying
Speaker 166
51:58
anything we don't have to have where using everything we can find and like I say we're not buying
anything major except like gas oil and greece to keep the equipment going we're people are giving us different things that we can use so we're we're watching our money
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
52:20
yes you talked about that y'all developed who who
developed that was that collaborative between the employees in the council or who was that
Speaker 166
52:30
that was submitted in the audit report to you was prepared by the by Mayor Franklin and the
chief of staff Jamesalley. right thank you
thank you just a couple of follow up questions one regarding the mayoral vacancy has the city council notified the governor of the vacancy officially or formally everything's
Speaker 163
52:57
been done according to procedure according to the law yes or she knows the there was a court order when the mayor was removed it's all been
submitted to the governor and so that that has that has been officially I know we all have the media but but the official action of the council to notify the mayor. OK. and then secondly and I was looking at the report you were referring to cuts in in as as part of the plan but I'm not sure that that was actually in the actual report
rightpresentative Rye you're recognized. sir thank thank you Mr Chairman
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
53:39
ma'am let me ask you this I heard you refer to 2023 which is a couple of years ago, could you see this at the end of the year could you see that this was exceeding especially in the road fund of how much you were spending up against what was budgeted Yes
Speaker 168
53:58
sir we we we kept the council advised as
Speaker 166
54:01
to the expenditures and what we had and what the revenue was but at the same time ma'am you you
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
54:09
actually where you spending more at the
end of the year on record than what was actually budgeted sir
you are Well OK, one more question for this 225 year ma'am we're into July. of the amount that you have budgeted for 2025 have you exceeded50% or or anything or or what are you doing as far as the percentages what has been used
for this year up against what has been budgeted
Speaker 166
54:43
for the year that would be a question for the treasurer Mr Turner handles all our finances he
Speaker 178
54:49
would know what percentages and I honestly don't remember
thank you ma'am right Representative MacGruger you are Recognized Thank you Mr Chair. Thank you Miss Ramsey
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
55:08
for being here today and all the citizens
of Wes Ho who have arrived here I'm born and raised in westha Arkansas I watched the community as it has been a slow decline and I'm very concerned about this issue we're facing right now as I noticed the decline my question for you Miss Ramsey is when the the mayor who was just removed took over was there a balanced budget when he
arrived No, we had overspent OK. so this has been a and as I know I think when I was growing up the population was about 23,000 there and I see now it's about 8000 people this has been a constant decline over over the ear s and along with the water issue it's just imploded. OK well thank you for being here thank you for the work that you're doing as
we transition and any support that I can offer please let me
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
56:27
know Senator Deeses you are recognized. Thank you Mr Chair. Thank you Mr
Ramsey right here in front of you in the middle here. I was hoping to ask a few more questions to the former mayor but with the response we got at I do have his responses in the report and I'd love to know your thoughts
on his response because what I'm reading in layman's terms it looks like it he's saying it's not on me it's on the city clerk and I believe you're the city clerk and I see the phrase of weakness described do you believe that's an accurate portrayal of of the situation as far
Speaker 168
57:07
as I'm concerned yes ma'am No. I can't explain why the mayor
Speaker 166
57:19
said what he said I just know I am A good city clerk I try to find the money to pay the bills I've been with the city for over35 years. haven't been city clerk that long but We work diligently to try and work with our vendors and things and thank goodness they're very understanding and but
the responsibility of running a city is not totally owned the clerk. or the treasure it's always been a joint effort to make sure we do things right but I can't explain his comment. I will make every
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
58:03
effort to encourage the city treasurer and city clerk to rectify this weakness without delay was his was his phrasing in the response. are you under any active litigation or or lawsuit or no not personally the
Speaker 166
58:17
city has some lawsuits but I personally
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
58:20
don't are not correct OK thank you and then lastly I believepresentative Macgruder asked us but is it the
Speaker 166
58:29
population about 8000 people it's about 8000 yes sir as I said our population is decreasing because a lot of our persons are moving to be near their families moving for better jobs have the job changes of course are and then we have a of
our population is is elderly and retired and of course our revenue a lot of it is dropping simply because people shop out of town we don't have a lot of stores or either they and so that takes our tax dollars but so with with having gone through this experience which nobody
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
59:11
wants to and and thank you for being here today. I think the the former mayor for being here
today it these are not fun meetings to
have to go through for sure but having gone through this experience in the audit and this report what what would you tell other city clerks and other cities and municipalities what have you
learned through this so that other folks don't have to go through
Speaker 168
59:37
through something like this they just need to make
Speaker 166
59:40
sure that they keep their counsel and their citizens abreast of everything going on whether it's financially or any changes that are being made and I think that all of the elected officials
need to know their responsibility it's not so much that you walk in and sit down for a meeting and then you go home and you don't ever ask any more questions. Council members need to be involved and need to have comment and you think there was an issue there I think all councils in the state the the councils need to be involved in the operation. I realized they are not responsible for the day to day operations but they need to know what's going on and
they need to ride around their city and they need to
Speaker 207
1:00:31
stay up to date. Thank you Mr Ramsey. Representativehack you had a
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:00:34
question. Thank you Mr Chair Ramsey as a former city council member myself you know I hear what you have said and by the way, I think you're doing a graceful job at sitting up at the table and answering these questions you advised the city council every month or every meeting about the spending on whether
they should or shouldn't make those appropriations, correct? so as the city is declining in population as the revenues are not coming in when a when an expenditure for a dozer or a mini x or whatever it comes to counsel it is your recommendation at the council that we probably shouldn't pay for this because we don't have the money. correct that's what we've told and so then it was on the city
council to go off of your go against
your recommendation to approve these expenditures correct? after the presentation is made
Speaker 166
1:01:26
as to why they may need the equipment even though we tell them that we're gonna have trouble making a payment on it or we don't need to make a payment on it or whatever it's it's their decision to vote on it and then we
Speaker 211
1:01:38
just try to find the money to make a payment but I just want to make it clear though
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:01:44
that you it was your recommendation that we don't have
the money to to pay for this stuff right now at the city council meetings we don't come right out and say it
Speaker 166
1:01:55
but we tell them you know this is what your dad is this is what you're declining revenue is and then they all know that we're having trouble making payments anyway and it's up to them if they vote on it the treasurer and I just have to find the money you Senator Love
Speaker 211
1:02:08
you recognized Thank you as chair this friends them to your left. OK.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:02:26
Um, so I want to go back to something that was first brought up by I think it was representative macgruder so I mean let me ask you this or I can ask staff when when did the former cur the current mayor the former mayor the gentleman that just left When did he come
to office? January1st202323. OK so Miss Ramsey in your testimony with
withpresentative Macgruder you said that you all didn't have a balanced budget before then or did you all have a balanced budget before then Or when is the last time you had a balanced
Speaker 195
1:03:08
budget do an amended budget at the end of the year and you balance your your numbers out you'll have to ask the treasurer how what the
Speaker 171
1:03:16
revenues were at that time for clarifying that with
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:03:18
me because I want to know I want to ask a question to the correct
person OK so as far as your you're two biggest budget items are are I've seen that you all did a equipment that kind of put you all in a debt now the equipment purchase that you all made before with the knuckle boom truck and I think the staff said knuckle boom truck garbage trucks and everything like that so you all said that you all had equipment that was repossessed before then So can you kind of tell me what was
going on there you had equipment repossessed and then you all
Speaker 162
1:04:03
had to buy new equipment we had three pieces of equipment Well4 pieces of equipment through
Speaker 166
1:04:09
caterpillarinancial that we use for the landfill and we got behind in the pavements and we couldn't pay it so that was repossessed I want to say in 2024 caterpillar has since sold the equipment at auction and I'm
awaiting information from them as to what I'm going to owe on it and then we needed a loader and two garbage trucks and those were purchased and financed through one of the local banks they the the it was financed for like $800,000 and our monthly payment is about $16,000 on that these you said these are garbage trucks so
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:04:54
without those garbage trucks and
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:04:59
truck with the grapple on it. I got you. OK. and then also is you all have debt in regards to tax filings who who
who is who was filing the taxes for you all the treasure handles all of the taxes and setting
Speaker 178
1:05:14
up a payment plans with either the IRS or DFA who so he could explain that better OK. all right and then
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:05:22
the last thing I want I want to ask you is going back to your your biggest debts or you you
you testified that their payroll is probably one of your majord debts iss is is that your testimony I mean like payroll is a large yes.
Speaker 168
1:05:41
OK. what what is your next largest debt
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:05:43
if if payroll is your largest or or is payroll your largest debt guess payroll would be the largest it would
Speaker 166
1:05:50
be like 140,000 every two weeks roughly OK and then if it what what's your next largest debt
Speaker 166
1:06:12
pay health insurance premium and then
Speaker 163
1:06:16
three times a year I have to pay the property insurance the fleet insurance and our workers's comp insurance
Speaker 166
1:06:23
and those are my my big debts and so all all of it's kind of
Speaker 227
1:06:29
surrounding payroll oh wow OK all right well Mr
Chair, I'll get back in the queue for
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:06:47
rightpresentative mayberry you are recognized Thank you uhpresentative Hak and Senator Love and asked quite a few of the questions that I had listed here but how long have you been there? and
in your position I came in as city clerk in
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:07:10
the city for since 1987. and has this finding come up before audit before not not like this no. Not like this. OK I also was kind of wondering I think that there's other people here from the city and I feel like you're having to field all the questions and I didn't know if maybe some of the the city council members or the treasurer would be willing to come up and kind of answer some of this since we did have some questions about the city council like representativehawk had
asked if we could bring them up is that possible
so yes that's a good question what I had stated earlier was that we
were going to go in the order one at a time and next up is treasurer Derek Turner after that A andP director Helen Halbert and then after that council member Don Etherly so if if you feel like you're you're working Miss Ramsey too hard then we can save some of these and then recall her
later. there's several in the queue now and I'm going to work through each one of them but if if you would like we can let her catch her breath and
drink a little bit of her water and then have her back up if some of the questions don't get
answered all right seeing no objection. I'm gonna not dismiss you but I'm going to allow you to step away and then we'll recall you we won't have to swear you back in. thank you very much for very patiently answering these questions and so next
up Derek Turner, city treasurer Mr Turner, if you would do the same just stand there at the microphone and state your name employer and position derek Turner, city treasurer right and if you would also
raise your right hand and do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
thank you you may be seated and senator crowell you're first in the queue and I'm gonna call on
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
1:09:30
you. you're recognized thank you chairman I got two things. One,
I kind of wanted to talk about the debt that the city has had it's my understanding that before this adminis last administration was there you were $173,000 in
debt and in the first year you increase that by458,000. and since then up to date as of last week you're at 2,95. 1000 Is that what's happened with this administration city
So then I'm going to go to my second I guess comment question So we allowed o things to be repossessed
All we had left in payments was 176,000 dollars. But yet this last year and we would have those four items and not been repossessed Yet this last year if I remember on the thing it was somewhere around a million and a half we started a new leases on those type of items is that correct What would as the treasure what was the thought process of
allowing them to be repossessed and now we're going
Speaker 242
1:10:57
contracts the thought process was that as a city clerk stated that you know the Everyone is aware around the table administration and and the city councilman was all aware that we are Having a financial difficulties er circumstances like the landfill requiring by state law
they have to have certain equipment to operate. So if we didn't have this equipment the landfill was shut down and so that's why the city council made the decision to get the equipment at the landfill. The the old equipment the equipment that had been repossessed wasn't working
Speaker 244
1:11:35
it was in disrepair and we needed new equipment to to to keep the landfill open OK,
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
1:11:43
one last question then I'll get back in the queue. James Valley who's a former mayor
was the chief of staff for the current or for Mr Franklin. is he still employed sir and so we have a chief of
staff that is taking salary to the mayor that's not there Yes sir OK Representative Brown you are recognized thank you Mr Chair
Speaker 251
1:12:22
it seems to me that reading this report that clearly this is not a sustainable operation. and the plan of well we're going to sell the hospital to try to get us to right the ship. there's not more hospitals you can sell. So I guess my question is is at any point has the city discussed filing bankruptcy
not to my knowledge thank you chair Senator Love you are recognized for questions thank you
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:12:48
Mr Chair and I I didn't I didn't get to ask the the car this but I'm I'm
gonna start with this kind of define your role with the with the administration as as far as your treasurer what is it that you're that you
Speaker 254
1:13:06
do my role as a treasurer primarily is to provide the city council with a financial report and
Speaker 242
1:13:14
to maintain the city's financial records now cause when
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:13:19
the testimony with the clerk now do you all make
recommendations you know because you know when we're looking at it we're looking intuitively saying that hey wait a minute you don't have the money to pay for this why would you do this? So are you all making recommendations to the council you're advising the council kind of shed some light on that
Speaker 254
1:13:44
for me. OK so when the department head
Speaker 242
1:13:48
or the mayor De decides that they need equipment particularly say the
the sanitation trucks so we didn't have any sanitation trucks that were operational or they would work for a brief period of time and so it was imperative that we we're able to pick up the citizens garbage and so during those discussions it wasn't at one meeting it probably was over ever al months of meetings we would in the city council is aware of the financial
difficulties that we have and so we know that it's something that we can't afford without or ning the financial condition of the city but those are items that are imperative that we have. I mean these decisions aren't like capricious decisions they're not just they're not mindless decisions they put a lot of thought into it, I believe and
these things like we need the sanitation trucks to pick up the city's garbage we need the landfill equipment to keep the landfill open. So even though they know that the city is going through its financial struggles they they know that they
Speaker 256
1:15:11
have to make these decisions to keep the city operational. they have to pick up the city's
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:15:18
trash well then the last question I'm gonna get back in the queue is this is that as a treasurer I'm gonna go back to your largest
the clerk said your largest debt is your your payroll and in in representative Macgruder in his you know when he was had questions we're saying that you know you went from 230,008,000 however you the fundsive decline but your payroll continues to either grow so If this did not start with the current administration as far as
your debt how far how long has it been since you all had a balanced
Speaker 242
1:16:09
budget I mean the the budget when it's passed has to be balanced you know so
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:16:14
when you are incurring debt what I'm saying is well this let me ask you like this if you see that your payroll is your largest debt why have you all not cut your payroll
Speaker 242
1:16:32
that is a good question and that was one of the the proposals that guess the former former mayor had discussed with the city council prior to his removal from from my office I don't know the specifics of which positions or who they were going to cut but they had presented ta f f cuts to the city council
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:17:04
what form of government do you all have you have a city manager form or is it a strong
mere form of government strong so then the miracle just cut the positions could he not? so they don't have to be approved by the
Speaker 244
1:17:22
city council I'm I'm not sure I believe he could. I believe out of respect for
Speaker 242
1:17:27
the council I think they kind of want to be on the same page but I think the mayor he's he has the authority to hire and
fire in the city so if you wanted to just not really get rid of a position but if you want to fire a person and in the state of Arkansas I think they have what do they call it the at will state. So if he wanted to get rid of a position or a person he he could but I think they want to have some discussions and do it in an efficient way. OK thank you'll get
Speaker 221
1:17:58
back in the queue. OK, I think in the
interest of time and because some of these questions are bouncing around
and we've we've heard reference to the city council. I think what I'm going to do at this point is I'm gonna ask Miss Ramsey to come back up just in case she didn't answer all of your questions but I'm going to ask the other two miss out al ber t Helen Halbert, DA andP director and then Don Atherley, the council member and and A andP commission member chair to come to the table and that way we can kind of maybe cover all the questions and and wrap this thing up pretty quick.
Miss Ramsey, you are already sworn in but Miss Albert if you would for the record, state your name your employer and
position and Helen Halbert and commission right and
Speaker 270
1:18:52
I'm gonna actually do both of you at the
Speaker 54
1:18:56
same time s we're both of you in so if if you
would Mr Etherly is it etherly or etherley Eththerly if
you would also for the record state your name
Speaker 272
1:19:11
employer and position. Don Etherly and I'm on city I'm city council member chair A and P And I've also I'm also the mayor pro team OK. thank you.
So if you both would raise your right hand and if you do you solemnly
swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you you may be seated. we'll start out with uhpresentative hawk here
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:19:41
Thank you guys. I I think this might be for the treasurer, if not for the clerk. with the litigation going on with the the former mayor that was just had is the city paying those legal funds or is that on a personal level where he's having
Senator Matt Stone
Unverified
1:20:00
to pay those legal funds I believe in if I'm incorrect,
Speaker 242
1:20:04
let me know there is a there's a situation in which the city
Speaker 254
1:20:12
is paying for legal representation that was
Speaker 256
1:20:14
something that occurred while he was being mayor and everything else the mayor has separate council that he is paying for himself. So is
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:20:22
the city attorney is do you guys have a city attorney is the city attorney representing the mayor in that or or is it outside council that you're having to pay fors outside council and that wasn't I'm assuming that wasn't budgeted in the previous budget for for monies to be paid for so this is just
more debt on top of the already growing debt sir
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
1:20:52
thank you Representative Long you are recognized Thank you Mr Chairman. I've got a question for the the the folks from the city and also one for staff if I could I'm I'm not sure which one of you might could answer this over here but how many total employees do you have and if you could give us a breakdown on like how many of them are police fire sanitation landfill and maybe miscellaneous employees because it sounds like
you know that's the your greatest expense we're we're kind of interested in finding out just maybe if
Speaker 254
1:21:21
you've got too many employees I believe we have we have in the neighborhood of about 120 employees when I
Speaker 256
1:21:29
set for the city and we differentiate to sit in the water department so for the city I would say
Speaker 235
1:21:37
around 120 employees and around 20 for the water department how many
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
1:21:44
would be for police and fire do you think sir police and fire Close to50
Speaker 254
1:21:52
You mean just officers or or staff as well yes sir say in the50
Speaker 282
1:21:58
employee range that you know for the city of 8000 people
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
1:22:05
that that seems like y'all got a lot of employees I don't know I've never been in city government but you know that's you know not a really big
city so you know if y'all not really seriously looked at maybe trying to cut way back on on these salaries like I said earlier the
Speaker 254
1:22:28
the former mayor they have made a proposal to ur they cut salaries but I guess they he just didn't have time to begin implementing the plan thank you sir and I had a
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
1:22:42
question for staff I guess it
would be for staff and this is my first term on on audits so you have to forgive my ignorance but I know that the state has a law in fact when a school district gets in financial distress we're basically the state goes in and takes over the the school board and fires the superintendent I was wondering is there anything like that in place for municipalities? if not I think we might might need to look at into doing something like that just there's nothing of similar
Speaker 291
1:23:17
form for cities that I'm aware of Thank you sir appreciate it.
Representativery you are recognized ray until
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:23:38
present time with this situation does that sound about right? wy23 I know the artists for 2023 I
don't know well let's just say this you got all these folks that are working for the city fund or road fund got normal folks and maybe the general but you got all this equipment back in 2023. and that equipment you're probably paying payments on it by the month. Knowing that this went over about a half of a million dollars did you when did you get to the
point in the year. let's just say you got into October november when everything starts getting kind of lean and you say look we've got payment for this and this and this but we got all these folks on payroll Did you ever have a message that you threw out there at city council saying hey look we we've gone as far as we can go with the amount of people that we're paying and the amount of money that we have for equipment here are we gonna make
cuts to make this thing balance out by the end of the year or maybe you could let
Speaker 235
1:24:56
us know what happened there Well I can answer a portion of that and if if councilman Ely wants to
Speaker 256
1:25:04
add more to it you know that that that would be fine with me but the equipment was in the landfill. it wasn't in the street department it wasn't in the road fun it was in the landfill and as I stated earlier the equipment was
necessary to keep the landfill open and so the landfill only has about 6 or7 employees we had a new landfill director and he hadd gone out and spoken with some local businesses and we had projected an increase in landfill revenue and so that was also a deciding factor in us getting the equipment for the
landfill and so since we've gotten that equipment we've been on we've made on time payments with the landfill and before that time like I said the the equipment was in this disrepair and there was a period in time when Management maybe helps count on shaky ground and revenue had declined
receivables had increased and so when we got the new person in they started calling the people that owe money to the landfill revenue started increasing and like I said they went out to some us ine s s es and we had a projection and increase in revenues for the landfill and that's that's when the city council decided to approved the purchase of the equipment but it was primarily based on the increase in revenue
and the the the the the need
Speaker 244
1:26:57
for the equipment too keepep the landfill open
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:27:01
Yes sir. Now let me let me ask you this when did you get to that point sir
that you said look we've got certain amount coming in each each month Foryiro that we got made we got a certain amount for this new equipment and for existing equipment that's out there when did you make that turn that when you knew that you had to really make some cuts sir.
Speaker 256
1:27:29
well if you ask when we came to the point where we knew we had to make payroll and we had other bills to pay that we've been in that position for a while but like I said there there are certain s s ent ial functions of a city that that we are that we have to provide for our citizens that's fire fire protection you know that someone mentioned something about a
pumper so we purchased a pumper and sanitation services and that was the garbage trucks and the place to take it which is our landfill and so all of those purchases were things and they and like I said their there were lengthy discussions this wasn't like a one meeting five minute discussion this was over a period of several months and so and they came to the conclusion that these are services that are absolutely essential to the
function of the city and this is my from my point of view they made those decisions to ur cha se the equipment knowing that we had the financial problems and I think somewhere in the back of their minds and like a said it's it's it's my personal opinion that they knew at some point that we
Speaker 244
1:28:50
would come to the point where we would have to do something about staffing those were comments that were made
Speaker 256
1:29:01
that I've personally heard after the meeting and at the Walmart and at the gas station and in the restaurants we have those discussions that eventually we would have to get
Speaker 288
1:29:11
to the point where we're gonna have to
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:29:15
make some significant or severe cuts ol low a place let me ask you this sir for 2025 we're in July all these cuts
and I'm sure that you've made and let this equipment go back and all that other kind of situation. how do you stand for twenty25 as
far as balancing out and projection for the entire
Speaker 254
1:29:36
year, sir. Well I did I had my 2025 treasur report that I give to the city council I
Speaker 256
1:29:42
think uhenator Love asked the question earlier but someone I think it was Senator Love about Well I think it was someone else ask about the percentage that we were at with expenditures and so we haven't completed the June statement yet but as far as mayors concerned we're at
about40% of the budget as of Ma. so if we if we
Speaker 244
1:30:10
keep going at the at the current pace we should be under budget Yes sir Senator Crowee you are
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
1:30:33
recognized Ma'am, you had mentioned a lawsuit that the cities were involved in what what are they
Speaker 189
1:30:49
that the lawsuits the city are involved in I I don't know what all of them are there are some from equipment operators that are suing us for payment the county is we owe according to the audit
we owe the county of they say 140,000 for a lawsuit that we had with them we settled on it pending the sale of our hospital so we'll owe that but I'm not aware of all the lawsuits that out there they go to the city attorney
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
1:31:21
first. OK one more question I guess I don't know who this is for but you know we're talking about cutting staff making cuts but yet in this audit we paid over300,000
dollars in overtime. And I just at what point when you saw the budget and you you saw the treasurer's report, did we decide as city council members or whomever to say this is for any of you probably city council
Speaker 305
1:31:58
is is never. I respectfully disagree
Speaker 272
1:32:04
with some of the characterizations of of of how these items get taken care of in the city through the first quarter of this year I would say we had sufficient revenue to operate but our payroll was almost 80% of our revenue. was payroll and we have
What I call reckless practices with hiring of employees and excessive abusive overtime it it's it's My review is it's just ridiculous and we had a we had a finance meeting with the council this year. and we asked for some corrective action we were told that cuts would be made. we were told that the cuts would be made. I don't know what those
cuts are today. there were none that were reported to the body but there was a proposal that came from the mayor and Most of those proposed corrective actions I think one was something that was actually doable but the rest I don't think addressed the main issue and I told him at a council meeting
I'm really not for this proposal because I think the thing that has to be controlled is the the spending from the executive I think the city of helena west helena has sufficient revenue to operate but there's some spending that is just as I described it it's just been reckless and if it's controlled I think the city can operate and function. as a council member I have identified places where I think cuts can be made and some of them involve staff
I'm mindful of the fact that people back home are watching this and so I don't want to throw something out recklessly But I think there's sufficient opportunities in and in places where we can we can make budget changes so that we can get out of the hole that we're most of our debt is payroll related it's payroll related it's taxes it's lofty it's apers and some of these things we didn't find out about we got an email from from apers in February but
the council didn't know that these things existed this is what caused our meeting at the end of the first quarter to to just kind of do a deep dive into the the financial situation but but we can create a a profitable situation the the contractors the vendors I wanna say our budget this year had a was the the contractor's provision for one department was was overrun by February and we just adopted adopted a budget let me
Speaker 305
1:35:12
say March we just just adopted the budget on January30th of February 1st whatever the deadline was of this year but a lot of this was discretionary wasn't all Absolutely in my opinion there was
Speaker 272
1:35:30
some reckless discretionary spending and I think that if that is controlled the city can function and survive. OK I just have
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
1:35:38
two more little things. number one, I agree it's probably your payroll.
I agree that's one of your big things I called my three largest cities that are all larger than allannaislena and the most that they have for employees is 122. and you just testified you're in the seventiess. So I think you're a little over on your employees and then their overtimes average32,000 dollars. and most of those are because of instances I want to get back to the equipment one last time you said the equipment's in disrepair. how often were these
payments due where they do every month where they do every quarter of the ones that were repossessed the payments were due monthly So you only had 12 payments so you're telling me in 7 months and 8 months and in ive months they were in disrepair they had been in disrepair for a while I mean
Senator Matt Stone
Unverified
1:36:38
they would break down frequently but but you've only you had them t2 months because
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
1:36:46
you only had 12 payments before they were it says3 of t2 payments were of the tel fans were not made. So you he had him for t2 months that may
Speaker 256
1:36:57
have been or payments for fiscal year 2023 but we we had that equipment for more than a year right thank you very much last question sorry I
Speaker 308
1:37:05
want I'll get back out of the queue. Council member what is the role of James Valley?
Speaker 305
1:37:19
He occupies the position of chief of staff so named under this administration under this
Speaker 272
1:37:25
previous administration. It was previously a position titled Publicorks and in that position we had a public works director which we attempted to this is gonna be more historical under a previous administration we attempted to remove the department heads to obtain a cost savings and that is instead of having a street department head a
sanitation department head or a landfill department here we consolidated one position public works and that person would manage all three
Speaker 305
1:37:57
departments under this administration that position was retitled to chief of staff and actually
Speaker 272
1:38:04
Miss Halbert was the former chief of staff but her position was actually it was the administrative assistant or executive secretary to the mayor and so this position was titled chief of staff but it was essentially the public works director the person who's
supposed to oversee those departments on a daily basis and and and manage them
Speaker 310
1:38:26
from a department headstandpoint and that's the position that he oc right thank you OK members
I want to be respectful of all the questions that are out there. we've been going for for a while now and I just want to kind of encourage you to ask the new questions or if your question is not fully answered then then go
back and ask about the equipment or whatever but let's try to let's try to address because there's some issues that that haven't even been addressed yet that you may not have questions about but let's let's try to not be repetitive with the questions as
we as we move forward and and hopefully wrap this up soon so with that uhs representative dalby you're recognized Thank you
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:39:10
Mr Chair. I would like to turn to page 8. of the report and I have really two questions and I think that people are there at the table first of all for the
treasurer there was a a finding that the mayor received a total of $10,000 that was not reported on the internal revenue IRS form W2.
my question is has that been corrected and has have
Speaker 254
1:39:38
those taxes been paid on that Well Currently it has not been corrected what happened in the previous administration was that we were giving the mayor he has a e hi allowance
and that vehicle allowance is $1000 a month and the auditors brought it to our attention that that should be2 income and so what we began doing with the previous mayor and maybe with the one before that but I know with the previous mayor we were we had set up his we have set up the tax payments for that vehicle allowance to come out of his regular check.
because that those were two separate checks we would give him his payroll check and we would give him his vehicle
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:40:34
allowance no has been issued in that
Speaker 254
1:40:37
regard we were in the process of correcting it but he's been removed from from office because I mean there was some a situation that doesn't happen automatically we have to be cognitive cognitive that you're doing
Speaker 256
1:40:50
it and we well I wasn't aware that it
wasn't being done and when the artist brought it to our attention he
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:41:03
was removed from office before we could thank you and then the other question I
have may be for AMP says the city made payments of nearly4,000 dollars for related party transactions without authorizing ordinances for catering services and for Christmas parade decorations and services hass that money been paid back?
Speaker 316
1:41:27
money has not been paid back but we did pass conflict ordinances
Speaker 270
1:41:32
with the council and my commission approved those expenses before they were and who is
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:41:37
the AMP commissioner member that will receive that payment He operates a food truck and who were the
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:41:48
employee that got the money for the parade decorations and services and she's married to a fireman
Speaker 270
1:41:58
and she's been involved with ther parade for years so that
Speaker 319
1:42:02
was not something I was aware of. Thank you Mr Chair.
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
1:42:09
I have lots and lots of questions but I recognize the time and it certainly appears to me that this has been a city that has been mismanaged for for a while but certainly has really been mismanaged in the last year or so with the
escalating debt and not taking care of business but with that I think the report speaks for itself and
I appreciate our staff for their thoroughness in this report thank
you. thank you Senator Love you're recognized for a very new question Of course
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:42:47
I have any questions So'm over here to you also left. I wanna actually go to the revenue side in the last I guess in the last
several years have you all raised any rates on your water sewer garbage collection talk to me about that
Speaker 305
1:43:10
what was actually last year November of of 2024 we raised our water rates after having a rate study and that
Speaker 272
1:43:17
came after the water crisis that we had in helena west Helena and and one of the things that I guess we didn't touch on so I appreciate your question is that in 2025 because what was
happening in the city is the water department collects both sanitation and water feeds and then they were in order to keep their doors open they were utilizing the sanitation fees which were supposed to go to general fund sincence January they there's been absolute 100% transfer of sanitation fees so the general fund has actually received a boost this year as opposed to the years prior but we did do a rate increase with the with the watersanitation I think the last
Speaker 305
1:44:03
time we increased sanitation fees might have been 2018 or 2019 but but I could be mistaken about that it was get
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:44:17
at your revenue so let's get back to your budget just as a question so when you all are balancing your budget are you all are you all balancing against the revenues that are incoming or or how are you all how are you all coming up to the balanced budget
Is that is that going to be based on
Senator Matt Stone
Unverified
1:44:39
predicted revenues coming in yes sir projected revenues and then
Speaker 242
1:44:46
the expenditure the appropriations are made according to revenue
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
1:44:50
projections based on your revenue revenue projections OK
all right I think there's there's some things I
wanna say but thank you
Thank you Senator Love. next up, Senator Stone, you're recognized Mr
Senator Matt Stone
Unverified
1:45:15
Turner they right here the equipment that was repossessed sir was it new when it was purchased Most
of it was new one piece of equipment that was purchased was a dozer we purchased two dozers one was new and one was used. Everything else was new. You mean for the of the
Speaker 331
1:45:41
equipment that was repossessed yes sir and how long did y'all
Senator Matt Stone
Unverified
1:45:46
own that equipment? about two years and you said it's in the state of disrepair it was constantly breaking down'm sitting there thinking you know when I'm not a a legislature I've owned and operated heavy equipment the last46 years. and a piece of equipment all the last 1f to 20 years that would be the equivalent of me going
and buying a new car in6 or 8 months later let it go back because that car was in the state of disrepair. I'm just sitting there thinking what is going on with the equipment operation and maintenance for something to be purchased new or a late model piece of equipment two years later to be in a state of disrepair I mean that's another problem that you have if it if it's breaking down you have to buy a new that that you got
problems just stacked on top of problems I'm just appalled that a new piece of equipment was bought in two years later before it's even paid for it's
Speaker 254
1:46:52
in the state of disrepair. yes sir and that that was something
Speaker 242
1:46:56
that came up and in several council meetings that the the equipment wasn't being properly
Senator Matt Stone
Unverified
1:47:03
maintained you've noticed I've noticed is things are coming up is being discussed it seems like y'all discussed payroll, labor equipment repair
ad nauseam but there's no action being taken. I have not heard one affirmative positive action that you've taken you know sometimes you got to quit talking and go to work and and take action that'd be my recommendation yes sir Representative Macgruder, you are recognized Thank you
Mr Chair. thank you all again for being here
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
1:47:45
I have observed your meetings. I appreciate you all being online and I've heard you being the voice of reason at times ofro Ethly but my question is the water issues how much of your budget was spent on the water issues that you all have been experiencing. waterter
Speaker 242
1:48:10
OK you when you're asking about how much of the
budget has been spent OK so we it wasn't we didn't budget for a new well because we didn't know that the whale was we were having problems with the wheel so that wasn't budgeted for and well I would have to say not a lot of the things that with the water crisis
Speaker 256
1:48:39
we're budgeted for the well for one thing and the extent of the leaks the extent of the
Speaker 242
1:48:50
pipes that need to be replaced. we didn't really have a knowledge of how extensive that was while we were budgeting we budgeted for I'm not gonna say normal. I'm gonna say normal repairs for our city. it may not be normal for any other city but the repairs were extensive so we budgeted for for the amount of free leaks that we were experiencing but once the crisis began and we became aware of the pump of course I think that was over a million dollars that wasn't
budgeted for and then we also became aware of how extensive that of of the need that we have for to replace the pipes. So if you ask that question I'll say none of the what we are preparing
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
1:49:40
to do was budgeted for OK also I know you all about new equipment for the landfill I've've uhm understand that there's a coalition of landfills or or coalition of
counties that come to your landfill or all those still coming to the landfill cause I do know there were some issues and it has that gave you all a revenue hit or in regards to your budget also. that's
Speaker 242
1:50:05
giving us a revenue hit because a point in the past they weren't and we still have some that aren't coming we had some issues I don't want to name the
counties or the cities but we did have a problem with some counties and cities that didn't want to come and we kind of got some of that resolve but not all of it and so that that that that is a problem that we're also facing. I'm glad you
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
1:50:40
brought that up. OK and I observed I'm there every other weekend for service at my church I know they're they're always been some issues with the grass and I can recall a council meeting
where you all had to vote on purchasing a new mower and I know when I was coming especially during this time of year sometimes grass would be unbelievably high in the city do you still have that equipment or was it repossessed or what are your plans because it you can't encourage people to come to the city when it looks in disarray.
Speaker 242
1:51:13
we recently we we lease our moors to cut the grass in the city and we just recently renewed the lease
for newmoors I think we got a couple of additional ones OK. I do have
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
1:51:28
other questions but I ask them offline with respect to time. Representative Brown you are
recognized Thank you Mister Chair and
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:51:41
thank all of you for being here this
question is for the city council member and I apologize sir I didn't know your last name if you could repeat it for metherther yes ma'am
thank you very much Mr Etherly when a city's population declines from approximately 23,000 to8,000 that doesn't happen overnight that happens over a period of time wass there was the employee the number of employees was that ever reduced over time I don't understand why you have so many employees when you only have 8000 population
Speaker 305
1:52:29
I'll answer your question by saying I agree with the premise for which it's based. However, in the state of Arkansas you have a strong mayor form of government we can we pass a budget it's balanced every year it has limitations. we can't make him follow it unless we go and tackle him and so there are things that have happened that were beyond our knowledge beyond our control I learned just in the last
two weeks that we took on three new employees while all of this is going on we just as a council member you can you can know these things but you don't have the ability to stop it it has to come from the executive. I would respectfully say that that has remedied itself at this point and so what we await is the new executive and someone who's going to be fiscally responsible and and address these issues in a way that they should be addressed
the council does all they can to try to make sure that the the things that are needed I'm on record as saying we this year we should only spend money on things that are crucial to our operation on a day to day basis that's that was my position. In fact I voted against the garbage trucks but the majority of the body understand and we got to pick up garbage. I wanted further budget talks and and that didn't happen but I don't put that out there to say that you know my position is so much greater I'm just saying
we do what we can but at the end of the day when we leave the council table we're not in charge of day to day operations and I think the operation and I'm not saying anything that I haven't said at the city council meeting it's been absolutely awful. it's been awful but we at this point from what I've seen I continue to say we can survive we can't operate if it's done responsibly and I
think there are changes that we can make for the city of helena west helena they can they can allow it to continue
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:54:39
to operate thank you for that statement and and I just want to say for the record that I I don't want any of my questions to appear to be disparaging you personally or any of your decisions because you all seem like very ethical caring and concerned people for your community but are you and the reason I picked on you was I think you're the acting mayor are you not?
and and and based on that could you not they the and I know you said you wanted to wait for a new mayor could you not make some of those difficult because decisions to let people go or askpe I mean there's got to be people sitting around idle if you've got enough employees for 23,000 and you've only got 8000 people in your population there's got to be people sitting there twiddling their thumbs, I would think.
Speaker 305
1:55:37
that that's a good question I believe you to be correct. the court order in this matter when when when Mr Franklin was Restrain from acting we were advised by the arkansas municipal league that there was a statute and they provided it to us that allowed the clerk to immediately step in and handle day to day operations upon his removal there's a void So the court order directed the the former mayor to turn over all of his keys and city possessions to the mayor of
protem that would be me. and empowered me to carry on the day to day operations of of the city that's only been since Monday of this week OK I'm I'm a practicing attorney I've been in court all this is this is my second day not being in court this week OK so it empowered me to to carry on the day to day operations of the city and I hear what you're saying Arkansas municipalitya conference with our city attorney yesterday and suggested that we make no hiring or firing decisions the
Speaker 272
1:56:39
anticipation is that the appointment would come quickly and that the person who's permanently in that position but you I understand what you're saying I guess
Speaker 305
1:56:49
I could go in it's just against legal counsel right now is advice for me to go in and just start doing stuff turning over the apple cart so to speak but I guess at some point you have to decide whether or not the appointment is coming quickly or whether it's not coming quickly and move on and
so I reckon with that in the last 24 hours as well that at some point we still have to to
move on one way or another thank you
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:57:25
for your answer Representative ladyman you have recognized. Thank you Mr Chairman. Well, presentative Brown asked some of my questions but sorry Mr Etherly I just
text the municipal league you knew this answer already but since you're a firstclass city you are the acting mayor right now that's correct right?
Per the court order I am Well, per the i municipal league you are but you've answered that and I appreciate y'all being here and answering our questions but there was a comment about the overtime. if you're going to cut personnel you're already spending a lot of money on overtime as the retreasurer you said but Question the overtime I think was in the police department is that correct? not totally the
majority was the majority of it police that
Speaker 305
1:58:14
there was a lot in the police department but there was a there was some different departments administration sanitation we were averaging about $19,000 a month in overtime this year alone through the first quarter it was it was ridiculous So my point is you may
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:58:28
have overtime in one department and you find in other areas so you could cut in some areas even though you've got overtime so my question is are you having trouble like in police or you
having trouble getting people to to take those jobs that
Speaker 305
1:58:47
would cut your overtime we we were in the police department our police department was significantly down within the last three weeks they've been able to hire about4 or5 new officers which would alleviate the overtime we're working on also a a cops grant to pay those officers so that it doesn't have a a necessarily a budget impact but that's in the works but they
did bring on some new officers and that will alleviate the overtime issue substantially because we were down to some some very alarming numbers in the police department and literally you had officers working almost around the clock so you
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:59:25
might be able to cut in other areas in other departments there's definitely some
Speaker 345
1:59:30
places where cuts can be made OK well I
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
1:59:34
I appreciate y'all being here appreciate your answers thank you Representative rye you're
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
1:59:43
recognized Thank you Mr Chair and you're the acting
Speaker 352
1:59:56
mayor now sir now the mayor before you how long was he there How long was he mayor was his tenure in office he was sworn in innuary23 and and he was
removed on Monday5 but now the one about the one right before you sir yes sir when did he come in the the I'm sorry the mayor the mayor before you January of 2023 now before him there was another mayor you're bound to
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
2:00:35
got to a point that you said look This is in trouble.
Yes sir OK now when was the alarm sounded that we know that even though we're buying this equipment leasing or whatever we might be doing here we're we're got a certain amount of people on the payroll when did that emergency occur knowing that you were really fixing to fall into some real trouble sir. for me it came last year
Speaker 305
2:01:09
sir OK I mean I've I've made multiple comments statements on council I mean our meetings are
recorded and I appreciate Representative Maguda he says he watches the meetings and he alluded to that I I've been saying we have to stop for a long time yes sir
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
2:01:26
but one other thing you've got a situation here that we're in now that's basically you got a third of the third of the amount of revenue probably that you did5 years ago
Speaker 352
2:01:35
maybe is that about right not a it's not a s it's not our revenue I think it's
Speaker 305
2:01:47
going to be around the $89 million range Correct me if'm wrong treasure here is down but it's not we're a small town so in any amount of revenue loss is significant so but it's been around the 9 to10 million dollar range within the last5 to6 years so it's it's down but maybe about a million dollars annually is what I'm is what I'm guessing without having the documents in front of me
Speaker 352
2:02:17
2023 but 2024 the budget between 2023 and the
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
2:02:22
budget in 2024 was it cut a tremendous amount sir was a budget cut a tremendous amount because you had all this equipment you had all of this the employees did you not make some cuts Big cuts and 24. I would
Speaker 305
2:02:47
but again we can't control what happens when the mayor goes in and tells some people yeah you can have a job go over there and they start working. Our budgets are always balanced they always have we always pass a balanced budget. what happens after that is we depend on the people who write checks and print checks and sign checks to stay within those line items
and so as a council member after we adopt an annual budget it it's kind of out of our hands as to what's happening on the ground because we're not involved in the day to day operations. some of this equipment repossession I found about in like let's say for example the the the state taking part of our turnback funds I read that in the newspaper that was no presentation to the body on it and so that's just the way it happens sometimes. but we always pass a balanced budget.
I mean we didn't pass a budget that was overrunning the the
Speaker 352
2:03:54
the revenue it's on paper On paper on paper yes
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
2:03:59
sir but like you're saying even though you may have passed a balanced budget for 24 you may have spent500 million more I mean500,000 more or that it would have been if you'd have stayed with your normal budget you you exceeded that sir yes sir that's true. thank you.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:04:23
Representative Beatty, you are recognized. Thank you Mr Chair. just a two part question reviewing the report where the mayor says hey it's not me it's not my not my job not my role and the issue that you know he makes the statement the issue's not management and oversight so my question for each of you is what direction our oversight or instruction did the mayor ever provide you in the discharge of your duties did did he ever give you any
site or any direction in fulfilling your obligations and
Speaker 262
2:05:02
each of you can respond to that excuse
Speaker 254
2:05:05
meal respond first to the the the the we're elected officials has no say so in how we perform our duties at
Speaker 256
2:05:12
most of our our dudes are dictated by statute state of Arkansas in response to that that response I think that has something to do with the journal
entries which I make when I do the financial statements and he's actually right that I'd make the journal entries and I think that finding was due to the fact that I didn't get the approval from another employee before making a journal entries and and so that's just to protect the integrity of the fin financial statements to make sure that I don't go in there and just try to cover something up and so what we've
the way we've corrected that is that the when I make journal entries to give them an accurate financial statement the city clerk approves the the er answers but other than that the mayor doesn't dictate our duties and responsibilities that's given to us by
Speaker 288
2:06:13
the state of Arkansas. anyone else want to respond
Speaker 305
2:06:25
I don't know if I understand your question. are you asking if he tried to tell us what our responsibilities were
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:06:31
right if he tried to influence you, direct you into what your duties were or the actions that were taken that led to some of these problems that are here in this audit No absolutely not Is there anyone else that exerted any influence or tried to direct you and do any any of the things that led to the what's in this audit report outside of the mayor
Speaker 18
2:06:56
for me thank y'all Representative y you do you
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
2:07:10
have another question sir'll try to make this short you thank you sir we'll go when when I mentioned sermon farmman the starting the alarm was the alarm made and someone stepping forward and saying look you got a balanced budget here
but you're exceeding this at least on a quarterly basis. you know like the first quarter of the year 2nd quarter and say hey look you've already overshot your budget for this part of the budget at this time of the year we we can't go any farther with this Yes sir I mean we we we
Speaker 254
2:07:45
do it all the time and just like Councilman Etheller and I
Speaker 256
2:07:50
were on the same page we agreed when we bought the sanitation trucks both of us agreed that we should
Speaker 254
2:08:02
look further into this it's it's not that they shouldn't that there was not
Speaker 256
2:08:06
a need for the sanitation trucks but we just want to look further into it and likely said they the city council voted to go on and purchase the trucks and he voted no and both of us suggested that we look further into the issue So I mean the the alarm has been sounded we there are times when we can ive our opinion
about how things may proceed how a vote should be I'm not gonna say how a votes should be made but we we're the the the the city clerk and I primarily and the city attorney we're there primarily to answer questions or to get some counsel into finances and other legal matters but of course you know that the city council but there there are many occasions where our ability to pay what for
whatever was on the table has come up but there's you know you get4 for votes can pass you know anything OK members seeing no one else in
the queue you've heard the report before we let you go. I want to personally thank
you as well for being here and and and answering all these questions so patiently and it sounds like most of you all have have have been in in hell in the westland
all your life and so I know these decisions are difficult and and and maybe even painful to have to deal with them and and I want to commend you and and encourage you to to do all you can to to to right the ship. so thank you and with that you are dismissed thank you So members you've heard the report. do I have a motion to file the report motion and a second any discussion on the motion if not all those in favor say aye
any opposed no motion passes right members last item is other business and under other business I'd like to recognize Keviny to introduce a few special guests Thank you Mr Chair. like to take a moment
Speaker 373
2:10:17
to introduce a few guests we have in the room today back in the corner behind this post here right we actually have7 interns of legislative audit who came over the past couple of days to watch the committee meetings they hail from the University of Arkansasfayetteville Arkansas Tech University Uve Monticello Arkansas State University.
they're spread across the state from Harrison to Russellvillecabotled Monticcelo inenterton I wanna thank them for being interns with us and the experience they've had as well as thank this body for providing the appropriation changes this last session and making it
Speaker 128
2:10:48
possible. thank you Thank you Mr. White. the next meetings
of the legislative joint auditing committee will be held on September 11th and 12. no new business and with that we are adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order by Chair
B. Adoption of Minutes
C. Reports of Executive and Standing Committees:
D. Review of Reports:
E. Other Business:
The next meetings of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee will be held September 11 and 12, 2025.
F. New Business
G. Adjournment
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — LEGISLATIVE JOINT AUDITING, Jul 11, 2025 | Agenda | 1 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Jim Petty Chair
Unverified
Senator Tyler Dees
Unverified
Representative Cameron Cooper
Unverified
Representative Hope Duke
Unverified
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
Speaker 29
Speaker 59
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 90
Speaker 96
Speaker 97
Speaker 105
Speaker 111
Representative Carol Dalby
Unverified
Speaker 80
Speaker 66
Speaker 128
Speaker 129
Representative Jack Ladyman
Unverified
Representative Johnny Rye
Unverified
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Speaker 163
Speaker 166
Speaker 168
Speaker 178
Representative Jessie McGruder
Unverified
Speaker 207
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
Speaker 211
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 195
Speaker 171
Speaker 162
Speaker 227
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Senator Steve Crowell
Unverified
Speaker 241
Speaker 242
Speaker 244
Speaker 251
Speaker 254
Speaker 256
Speaker 221
Speaker 270
Speaker 54
Speaker 272
Senator Matt Stone
Unverified
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
Speaker 235
Speaker 282
Speaker 291
Speaker 288
Speaker 189
Speaker 304
Speaker 305
Speaker 308
Speaker 310
Speaker 316
Speaker 318
Speaker 319
Speaker 321
Speaker 322
Speaker 331
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Speaker 345
Speaker 352
Speaker 262
Speaker 18
Speaker 373