HIPPO BITES
Little bits of big news
Shortage found in bond fund
Interim Finance Director Anne LaMere and City Controller Christina Bishop achieved what a professional auditing company could not: they reconciled the city’s Fund 60, and found it was approximately $2 million in the hole.
“The very first council meeting that I came to was in January, and Mr. Mayor, you told me something about some bond funds that were from prior years that nobody could reconcile, and they were still on the books,” LaMere said. “I had no idea what you were talking about but I took on the challenge and this is the reconciliation.”
LaMere said the fund contains “thousands and thousands of line items” dating back prior to the city’s current accounting system, which came online in 2013, and that a special bond audit paid for by the city in a prior year was unsuccessful at reconciling the fund.
“They were mixing multiple bond issues with expenditures. There was no tracking to tell if a bond went in for $11 million and $12 million was spent against it,” she said.
Of the $2 million overdraft in Fund 60, the financial director reported that approximately $1.5 million was eligible to be reimbursed by the 2022 General Obligation bond fund because it was mainly transportation project expenses that qualified for payment by that bond. Another $10,000 was eligible for payment from the Park Improvement fund, leaving $519,000 to be reimbursed from the city’s unreserved general fund balance.
LaMere told council the issue leading to this co-mingling of bond funds and expenses had been resolved.
“Since 2022, all of the bond issuances have been put in separate funds per bond issue. So, the projects are recorded against those, so we know exactly how much of the bond is remaining,” she said.
Shiloh Black Cemetery clean-up efforts ongoing
Winter storms left Shiloh Black Cemetery, a segregation-era resting place where Black people have been buried since the late 1800s, littered with downed trees and branches. On Sept. 30, Black Families of Hutto organized a cemetery cleanup that brought community groups and residents out for a day of work.
The historic cemetery, located at 1043 CR 139, contains the graves of ancestors of many current Hutto-area residents and is still in use, according to Mayor Pro-Tem Peter Gordon.
“It’s a personal thing,” Gordon said. “I’ve always been interested in genealogy and protecting the sanctity of cemeteries. When I saw the horrible conditions the cemetery was in, there was no way I couldn’t help.”
Gordon provided the dumpsters for the clean-up effort. He also previously worked with Williamson County Commissioner Russ Boles to get a sign put up at the cemetery. “It was being used as an illegal dumping ground. You wouldn’t even know there was a cemetery there before the sign,” Gordon said.
“Black Families of Hutto has been leading efforts since 2020 to beautify the once-segregated Black cemetery,” said Onnesha Williams, a co-founder of BFOH. “The cemetery is the final resting place of Benjamin ‘Doc’ Kerley, who used to spend his time and resources keeping up the grounds.”
While some community members donned work gloves to pull fallen branches over to the dumpsters and others wielded chainsaws to cut up larger branches and felled trees, there’s more work needed than community members can provide. Many trees have broken branches above the safe reach of community members.
“We are asking for donations to hire an arborist to do the work high up,” Williams said. For more information or to help, contact www.blackfamiliesofhutto. com.
New fire station named for Anne Cano
The Hutto Fire Rescue station currently being built at 161 Klattenhoff Lane in the Star Ranch area of Hutto has an official name. It will be known as the Anne Cano Fire Station No. 4. A plaque honoring Cano, who passed away Sept. 11, 2023, will be installed on the front of the building Williamson County Emergency Services District No. 3 chose Cano for the station namesake to honor her “steadfast love, support and protection of the firefighters and citizens of the Hutto community by giving her time, talents, treasures and service while serving as a commissioner,” according to the plaque.
Cano, a former Hutto City Council member, was a long-time local realtor and a board member of the Emergency Services District No. 3 who went the extra step and achieved her certified emergency services commissioner credential.
In her social media profile, she called herself “a passionate advocate for her community.” In the celebrations of her life that followed her passing, many community members spoke to her dedication and advocacy.
Construction on the new fire station began in late July and early August and is expected to take one year.
