Citizens fear council's inexperience driving town to poor house

by Jeni King

1 November 2018

At October’s city council meeting on the sixteenth, anxious Kennedale citizens expressed serious concerns regarding the fiscal stability of their town and the general competence of the council members.

Thursday evening a crowded house watched and listened as residents stepped forward to address city council members Rocky Gilley, Chris Pugh, Sandra Lee, Linda Rhodes, Jan Joplin, city manager George Campbell and Mayor Brian Johnson.  One by one, citizens took the floor to talk, nearly every individual demanding to know how the newly approved budget could sustain Kennedale’s expenses. 

One resident asked if the council could show him the dart board they used to make their decisions and urged them to “get a bigger envelope to do your calculations on the back of.”

The public reaction stems from the adopted budget for fiscal year 2018-19. The new budget, while seemingly copacetic on paper with an approximated overall total of $14.8 million in revenue and $12.6 million in expenditures, does not outline the changes implemented and covered by the city’s reserve funds. 

In August the council approved a budget that indicates, among other items, a decrease in water/sewer rates and an increase in employee salaries, namely the city’s first responders.  This reduction in revenue paired with the growing expenditures is precisely the type of decision that had residents questioning the methods of those in leadership.

Attorney and Dallas Baptist University professor of finance Andrew Shaeffer said he and his wife are building their retirement home in Kennedale. As a soon-to-be resident of the city, he took the podium and chastised the council for not deferring to staff with more experience.

“You can’t say, ‘Well, guess what. We’re going to give city employees a raise, which they deserve. But we’re going to cut our income by a third,’” Shaeffer said. “This is irresponsible.”

Nadia Guerra approached the dais and first corrected a mispronunciation of her name. “Mr. Mayor, it’s Guerra,” she said.  “It means war.” 

A former student of Mayor Brian Johnson at Tarrant County College, Guerra says he is the reason she moved to Kennedale but that the city has been nothing but disappointing.

“You are obligated to know the potential consequences of your votes,” she said to the council. “Stop voting our city into financial ruin and legal vulnerability.” Guerra added, “Start doing your job.”

According to council member Jan Joplin, that job has entailed more than what the public sees on the surface.  She said that since the replacement of the “old guard,” the new council has spent countless hours investigating the state of the current budget and uncovering the numerous financial missteps of the previous leaders. 

Joplin said it is the frivolous and possibly shady dealings of departed officials that created the obstacles the city faces today. She stated that Kennedale is in better shape today than it has been in some time. 

“There was a $1.6 million error that drained the reserves. The reserves are healthier now than they have been in at least five years,” the councilwoman said. 

Although he did not directly address Joplin’s comparison to the financials of the previous five years, Kennedale’s director of finance Brady Olsen said that with the new budget passed, the reserves are predicted to fall below the required 18 percent minimum. 

Olsen pointed out that the reserve levels for the water and sewer fund, the street fund and the general fund are estimated to fall to 17 percent, 17 percent and 13 ½ percent respectively. “None of our major funds are above their minimum requirement as projected at the end of the fiscal year,” Olsen confirmed.