• Groesbeck Council Approves Audit Report, Hears about Heritage Festival Plans
    Joan McEntyre, President of the Groesbeck Chamber of Commerce requested additional funds from the Council at their meeting on March 16, so that drone footage and promotional videos of the Heritage Festival can be afforded to showcase Groesbeck’s history

Groesbeck Council Approves Audit Report, Hears about Heritage Festival Plans

Groesbeck Council met for their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, March 16 to discuss financial matters and the Heritage Festival.

CPA Don Allman, who performed the audit, reported several facts and figures about the city’s financial position in presenting the report for the fiscal year 2020. He outlined changes to the city’s net worth, assets, revenue, proprietary debt, and more when summarizing the 50+ page report.

“You had almost right at a $160,000 dollar decrease in expenses while you increased your revenue,” Allman said. “It was a very good, strong financial year for Groesbeck. I was a little bit surprised, it seems like the pandemic, I thought, would affect sales tax, but not for you.”

Allman answered questions from council members and Mayor Ray O’Docharty, stating that Groesbeck seemed to have considerably less debt than other cities in this fiscal year. Council approved his report.

City Administrator Chris Henson reminded the council that Coronavirus Relief Funding (CRF) made available to the city government had been okayed for reimbursement of the police department’s payroll. Though $26,000 was given to GISD for hot spots in a previous meeting, the remaining $192,000 is available to the city to use as they see fit. He recommended using some of that money to compensate any leave time accrued by city employees and police officers down to their one-year allotment of 120 hours, in a similar fashion to the county’s use of CRF.

“If you permit that, it will leave roughly $149,000 in the account that is currently unencumbered,” Henson said. “If you agree to do that, then I will present budget amendments in the April meeting, and there is another project we’re kind of kicking around that we should have a figure for that I will present to you then.”

Council followed his recommendation and approved paying accrued leave time down to 120 hours.

Though the council previously awarded the Groesbeck Chamber of Commerce $2,000 for advertising for their upcoming Heritage Festival, Chamber President Joan McEntyre had not been in attendance to explain exactly how much funding was needed or how it would be used. McEntyre attended this meeting to request an additional $600 and offer information about how the Heritage Festival will spend the money, as well as give more details about the event itself.

“A major part of that funding request is actually for the video (footage),” McEntyre said. “We have contracted with a company called Loaded Sound out of Waco; they came and did a presentation to our Heritage Festival Committee on doing a video of the event. They not only have groundlevel cameras, but they also have a drone. They showed us a video they had done for another city in Central Texas for a similar event to ours and it was amazing.”

Loaded Sound will attend the Heritage Festival and create two videos, a short promotional video, and a fulllength historical video, both of which will feature the events of the festival and promote Groesbeck businesses and history. The fee for the services is $2,500, and other advertising costs came to $100, so the council approved giving an additional $600 of funding to the Heritage Festival.

In other business, the council:

- Approved the consent agenda;

- Designated the Groesbeck Journal as the Official City Newspaper (for record);

- Designated Farmers State Bank as the Official City Bank Depository (for record); and

- Approved changes to Library Board Members.

The next Groesbeck Council meeting is scheduled for April 20, 2021, at 6 pm in the City Commons.

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Groesbeck Journal

P.O. Box 440
Groesbeck, TX 76642
Phone: 254-729-5103
Fax: 254-729-0362