The Phantom Election, Shredded Documents and A Computer Wiped ‘Clean’

New Flatonia Leadership Finding Even More City Mismanagement

The new Flatonia City Manager, Sonya Bishop, should consider joining the fire department, because she’s been putting out a lot of fires lately.

The latest involves a sales tax election that the City held in 2017 but never reported to the State Comptroller’s Office. Bishop told the City Council in a meeting on Tuesday that she’s working on rectifying the oversight without any fines or penalties for the City.

But the Comptroller needs some documents to clear up the matter, including the City’s yetto-be completed 2020 financial audit.

The City hired Bishop in late November last year. She replaced former City Manager Sarah Novo, who departed following the fallout from an investigation she launched into mismanagement at City Hall.

Novo’s investigation, as reported extensively in the Record over the past two years, began soon after the City hired her in 2020. It uncovered years of “serious financial and operational concerns” at City Hall, which included unpaid bills, missing receipts, questionable purchases and thousands of dollars in losses. That investigation led to the early retirement of former City Secretary Melissa Brunner in August 2020. The City Attorney at the time, Angela Beck, resigned in the wake of Brunner’s departure.

The new leadership at City Hall has uncovered even more problems.

Back in 2017, the City held an election in which voters approved transferring a half-cent of the City’s sales tax levy to the Flatonia Economic Development Corporation (EDC). However, Bishop said the City administration at the time never reported it to the State Comptroller’s Office.

The City’s new attorney, Barbara Boulware-Wells, discovered the problem.

“It came to my attention when we were going through all our finances to find out who had filed eminent domain reports,” Boulware-Wells said. “EDCs are supposed to file various reports for eminent domain, and I didn’t see anything for Flatonia in the Comptroller’s records. I thought that was weird. I went back to the tax rate with the Comptroller and they didn’t have a record.”

Boulware-Wells said the Comptroller’s Office did not have any record of the 2017 election authorizing the sales tax for the EDC.

“You had an election, and it was all on the up-and-up,” Boulware-Wells said. “But it never got turned into the Comptroller’s Office. That was a bit of a concern. The secondary part of that is from the time the election was held, you were supposed to be reporting to the Comptroller’s Office.”

The City never submitted the required documentation regarding the EDC sales tax. After the meeting, the Record asked Bishop who was responsible for submitting the election results and subsequent reporting. Bishop said the City Secretary would have been responsible, and that the City Manager should have provided oversight to make sure they were submitted. The City Secretary in 2017 was Melissa Brunner. The City Manager at the time was Mark McLaughlin, who left Flatonia in 2019 to become the City Manager of Kingsville.

“They’re not going to charge us any fines, but they do want us to submit two years worth of reports,” Bishop said. “But I don’t have the 2020 audit to do those reports. I need those numbers from the 2020 audit.”

The City hired an auditing firm for the 2020 fiscal year back in January 2021. Bishop said the 2020 audit should be complete in the near future. However, she indicated that the 2020 audit might reveal some unpleasant news.

“I would like to put it on the record that I am not and will not be responsible for the 2020 or the 2021 audit, the results or any deficiencies found in those audits,” Bishop said.

“I think that goes without being said,” said Councilwoman Catherine Steinhauser.

Moving forward, Boulware-Wells said her office would take care of filing the annual reports to the Comptroller’s Office.

After uncovering the problem with the Comptroller’s Office, Bishop discovered that the City did not have a proper document retention policy. Bishop said she and another City Hall staffer found boxes of documents labeled “destroy 2021” in City Hall.

A summary in the Council packet stated the following: “While searching in these boxes numerous important documents were found and refiled. Several documents had important personal information and several keys to the building doors were found.” The summary said other documents had been shredded. The summary also mentioned a computer that a previous administration had “cleaned and the data was not able to be retrieved.”

Bishop proposed a comprehensive document retention policy. Under the policy, any documents to be destroyed, such as old receipts, will have to be logged. They will only be destroyed with Council approval. The City Council unanimously approved the new policy Tuesday night.