Maverick County Commissioners Court approve return of $893,047 CDBG funds for non-compliance
By: Jose G. Landa, Copyright 2015, Eagle Pass Business Journal, Inc.
Maverick County Commissioners Court unanimously approved to de-obligate (return) the sum of $893,047.04 of Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds due to Maverick County’s failure to comply with certain TDA requirements concerning the County’s 2012 Audit at their regular monthly meeting held on Monday, January 12, 2015.
TDA CDBG funds come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to the State of Texas to assist low and moderate income persons and communities with public infrastructure and improvements. The Texas Department of Agriculture administers the CDBG funds in the State of Texas.
County Judge David R. Saucedo opened up agenda item No. 24 calling for the discussion and possible action on De-obligation of funding from the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) Contract #711003 in the amount of $893,047.04 due to lack of County audit reports turned in on time and lack of corrective actions from the Maverick County Auditor’s office.
Commissioner of Precinct 4 Roberto Ruiz quickly jumped in and stated that Judge Saucedo had received a letter from the director of the Texas Department of Community Affairs(TDCA) regarding the County’s non-compliance with program requirements and corrective actions.
“Close to $1,000,000 is going to be taken from Maverick County, and what really hurts is that people in the colonias subdivisions will not be serviced anymore,” said Commissioner Ruiz.
Commissioner Ruiz noted that these funds were supposed to help with refurbishing homes and improvements within the County.
“We did something there. We started doing it. But then, low and behold, we had problems with the audit,” added Ruiz.
Ruiz stated that according to TDCA, the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) had not received adequate responses to their concerns to Maverick County’s 2012 audit. The County’s 2012 Audit was done by Martinez Rosario & Company, LLP of San Antonio, Texas. Maverick County’s 2012 Audit is available to the public through Maverick County’s website.
“There not happy with the 2012 audit and the 2013 audit is six (6) months delinquent with no expected time of conclusion. Who knows when we will get it done,” noted Ruiz.
Commissioners Court are currently embroiled in a feud with County Auditor Fidencio Ortiz on whose fault it is that Maverick County’s finances, records, books, and audits are in poor and dismal conditions, particularly during 2011 and 2012. County Auditor Ortiz has publicly acknowledged that he was not appointed County Auditor until September 24, 2012, after the problems existed and his office is working to correct over 10 years of poor County financial record keeping as expeditiously as possible. County Auditor Ortiz is appointed by the District Judges in Maverick County.
Commissioner Ruiz stated “It is time for the County Auditor to take ownership of the failures that we’ve had. He needs to say it wasn’t my mistake, it continues to be my mistake. Why have we failed, so bad? Your office should take ownership of the fact that they’re going to take away close to a million dollars from the county to help the needy.”
Ruiz noted that originally the CDBG grant was for $1,000,000, but the County secured only $106,000 from these funds.
Ruiz added “I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I know is that we have been as the word says De-Obligated of those funds. In other words, Bye, Bye, of that money for Maverick County.”
Ruiz stated that he had written a letter to both District Judges Amado J. Abascal, III, and Cynthia Muniz regarding this situation and his concerns.
“What is it that we need to do here, Judge?,” asked Commissioner Ruiz.
“What we need to do here is De-Obligate this money, because, despite whose fault it may be and I think it’s evident to the community whose fault it may be. I have a responsibility to the residents in all four of these Colonias, and I need to make sure that if we’re not going to be able to run this program we need to salvage this program. If we don’t De-Obligate the money, the citizens lose. I’ve never lost sight of the fact that we need to make sure that we provide services to our community,” replied Judge Saucedo.
Judge Saucedo stated the community deserves to receive these funds in some form of help regardless of which entity is providing them the service, and that he wants to assure that the community is afforded the service even if through another governing entity. “That is our first responsibility, because if we don’t De-Obligate this money then future generations in this community are going to lose out,” said Judge Saucedo.
Judge Saucedo added “The reality is Mr. Ortiz has been requested by the Independent Auditors to take and install corrective measures to make sure that we don’t go through the same problems that we’ve gone through before. And he has folded his hands and has said I’m not going to do it because I wasn’t here, I didn’t make those mistakes-the previous auditor did. Well, we have responsibility regardless if it was your mistake or not. Guess what, I’m the County Judge, obviously the previous County Judge made a lot of mistakes. I’m here. I don’t fold my hands and say the previous County Judge made those mistakes. I’m not going to tackle on that problem because I didn’t have anything to do with it. We have a responsibility. The auditor needs to answer to the taxpayers just as we do.”
Judge Saucedo advised Commissioners Court that he has had informal talks with the City of Eagle Pass about the possibility of taking over these grants so that county taxpayers do not lose out on these important public improvements and funds. “I am asking them to take over this project to make sure the citizens do not lose out.” said Judge Saucedo.
After further discussion, Commissioners Court unanimously approved the de-obligation (return) of the $893,047.04 CDBG grant funds.
This is the second time that Maverick County Commissioners Court have had to return or de-obligate much needed and important CDBG grant monies. The first time was on August 19, 2013, when Commissioners Court returned another CDBG grant for $580,000 to develop and construct a storm water drainage project for Las Quintas Subdivision and parts of El Indio Highway to avoid the severe flooding experienced by these areas during heavy rainfalls throughout the year. These two CDBG grants total $1,473,047.04 of state and federal funds that Maverick County taxpayers have lost due to Maverick County’s failure to comply with program requirements. Maverick County taxpayers will now have to pay for these important public infrastructure improvements if they should ever be done.
