CROCKETT, Texas (KTRE) – The Crockett City Council met Monday night to discuss a forensic audit report of the Crockett Economic and Industrial Development Corporation.
The CEIDC is a division of the City of Crockett. After significant questioning over their activities of the recent years, city officials requested assistance of accounting firm Weaver and Tidwell to review their actions.
Managing director of Weaver and Tidwell, Travis Caser, said the audit began in September. They presented the report that included several findings including annual budgets, bank statements, and employee compensations.
Caser said they interviewed 11 individuals, including employees, both current and former board members and city personnel.
Caser said they were able to obtain all the bank statements with the exemption of six months that were missing or incomplete, totaling over $451,000.
“We did not have check images, and the table shows which ones. January 2014 and then September 2017 are the range the six months fall,” said Caser.
Caser also said findings found the CEIDC had over several years of violations of the open meetings act including unidentified meeting agendas and not posting meeting notices.
“Over the years there’s been a lot of bad practices in lack of better terms,” said city mayor Ianthia Fisher.
Fisher also said based on the information presented that it appeared to be a series of nonfunctional practices that continued and never stopped.
“Is that a good thing? No, it’s not a good thing but it is something that happens when you have an opportunity to make a correction and you fail to make those corrections, it appears that it is okay. So I know there are a lot of responsibilities on those things that have happened and it’s the council’s responsibility to ensure that they don’t continue to happen.”
The city council came to a decision to suspend all CEIDC activity until further notice. All employees will still be paid during the suspension.
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