JEDCO proposed a budget of $288,000 for the 2021-22 fiscal year during a special called meeting Monday night.
The proposed budget, created by Board President Bubba Haggard, projects income at $288,000, which is an average of $24,000 per month. JEDCO is currently on target to finish the 2020-21 fiscal year at $317-318,000 according to Jefferson Mayor Rob Baker.
“The averages of the previous two years is mid-19,000’s,” said JEDCO Treasurer Doug Thompson. “The previous year’s budget was an average of $19,000 per month which was taking a low conservative estimate. The $24,000 may be an aggressive jump as we’ve never averaged $24,000.”
“That’s why I went 90%,” said Haggard. “This is mostly, as everyone, knows a guess. It doesn’t matter to me what we put in there. We’re probably not going to spend that much anyway.”
Haggard pointed out that JEDCO had almost no income in interest earned despite having a little over $1 million in the bank.
“We only have one interest bearing account,” said Thompson. “It was discussed 3-4 years ago to move the accounts to another bank to draw more interest, and been discussed every year since, but it has not gotten done.”
Currently JEDCO accounts are at First National Bank of Hughes Springs in their Jefferson location. Several years ago the City moved their accounts to VeraBank primarily due to interest options. JEDCO, which is required to follow the city with the location of accounts, did not make the move. Haggard indicated JEDCO would look at moving their funds at an upcoming meeting.
In expenditures, Haggard budgeted the “things we normally do.” But left out the $18,000 payable to the City for the City Administrator’s assistance as the city has not had one for several years.
“I didn’t put it on here because at this time Eric (Kuykendall) hasn’t done anything for us,” said Haggard. “He’ll be a part of what’s going froward, but as a quid pro quo, we haven’t gotten anything yet.”
Board Vice President and Secretary Raymond Sanders queried Kuykendall on how he thought he’d fit in with JEDCO.
“When I was hired I was told to help out administrative things,” Kuykendall said. “With other EDCs I’ve done lots of research and recruiting. But I need to know what we’re working with to do that. What kind of support do you need?”
“Well I think I know we’re going to have a lot of stuff coming up in the very near future,” said Sanders. “We’ve got some zoning stuff, utility stuff and we have to get through all that. We’ll have to have someone chasing down attorneys on zoning and engineers on utilities. I can tell you we have a lot of stuff working right now that will come up quick. I’m in favor of having someone spearhead the annexation part of this. It’s going to be a big, big part of this.”
“I’ll do it,” said Kuykendall.
Online comments by Haggard on FaceBook indicated that JEDCO, or some members of JEDCO are working on several projects, all supposedly covered by Non Disclosure Agreements, signed by various JEDCO Board members.
Nothing, however has been discussed or approved by JEDCO at this time.
Sanders has indicated in the last several meetings that he is working on something but, “is not ready to bring it to the board.”
The $18,000 was re-added to the proposed budget in their “Expenditures/Uses of Cash” section. Other items in this category include $2,000 Accounting, $2,500 Audit, $4,000 Legal, $1,000 Misc, and $1,000 training, for a total of $28,500. The salary for the administrative assistant hired at the last meeting is included in the Accounting category according to Haggard.
Project related expenses include $50,000 payment to West Frazier [sic – West Fraser Timber], formally Norbord; $50,000 to Fikes/CEFCO, $45,860 for Quiet Zone study approved by JEDCO to fund, but not by City at this time; $40,952 for TAMU Strategic Plan which was moved to later in the fall at a previous meeting; $5,000 for Texas Rural Leadership Program; and $67,688 for Other Development Projects; for a total of $288,000.
New Board member Lynn Daughrity asked for clarification on the type of EDC JEDCO is considered. There are two types of EDC a Type 4A and a Type 4B. There are also two types of revenue streams EDCs can utilize – also named 4A and 4B. The difference is how the funds can be used.
“What difference does it make?” said Haggard. “I know we’re a B but as far as the other part, what difference does it make?”
“Difference is what you can do with the money,” said Daughrity.
“We went into the statute and printed out a section 6-8 months ago and handed it out to everyone,” said Thompson. “Officially we’re an A but due to the size we qualify as a B,” said Thompson.
“How about getting me a copy? I don’t dispute what you’re saying,” said Daughrity. “An ‘A’ corporation is not automatically an ‘A’ revenue stream.”
The management of JEDCOs records also came up during the meeting.
“There’s been no continuity in the records,” said Haggard. “They were just awful. I think it something this board needs to make sure happens. We’re all short timers here. It’s just like we ran into with Bob. The Queen Wood document and the Pore document we did not have. I had to go to our lawyer to get signed copies. These records have been kept everywhere. We’ve searched for them. There’s no telling how many hours Raymond spent looking for things to send to the auditors. We need records so we know where everything is at. We need a central office where everything is kept.”
“We set that up but it never got used,” said Thompson. “There’s a brand new filing cabinet behind his [Kuykendal’s] desk. I have a bunch of historic financial records I need to put in there.”
“Everything [Queen, Pore, TNT Railcar suit] is in the filing cabinet now,” said Sanders. “There was a lot of stuff just stuck in separate files in different places.”
Ward 2 Alderman Robin Moore was the previous JEDCO Secretary and spearheaded getting the records in order and centralized.
“Once becoming secretary of JEDCO, I put together three-ring notebooks which held the packets for every meeting, restated bylaws, and contact info for the board members for that particular JEDCO board year,” Moore said via email.
“JEDCO, at my suggestion, purchased a new file cabinet that locks and that is where I placed my records and kept it locked. That locking cabinet is located in the city admins office.
“Those same books were in the possession of Raymond Sanders at his home when Bubba opened the file cabinet and found it empty,” Moore continued. “Raymond was working on a routine audit by USDA at the time and he hadn’t returned them to the locked cabinet yet and I mentioned that to Bubba when he asked me about the empty file cabinet. I understand those books have now been returned to the locking file cabinet along with other documents Bubba has retrieved from Bob Avery’s files, etc.
“I believe at the meeting in question they were discussing along with all the old records that have gone missing, that many recent records had been kept in various places, like contracts and financials, and not at City Hall. Bubba wants to correct that so that all records can be in one place – like the meeting packet books – so that future boards will be able to easily locate documents,” she said.
JEDCO will meet again on Wednesday, September 15, at 5:30pm at the Jefferson Visitors Center.