Beaumont city manager doubles down with last-minute bogus budget
For the second time in about as many months, Beaumont City Manager Kenneth Williams has prolonged performing his duties to the point where vital decisions would be placed on City Council members to approve or deny at the last minute.
Just two months ago, Williams’ handling of hiring a new police chief took securing the position into the midnight hour. Delays in the public spurred contention, and the fast pace necessitated by Williams waiting until the last minute to produce anything further exacerbated the stress on everyone. Williams had known since January that Beaumont Police Department Chief Jimmy Singletary was retiring, but the city manager didn’t bring in the first candidates – from far-flung locations on the city’s dime – until six months later, practically on the eve of the chief’s retirement. The only local candidate Williams selected as a finalist was Assistant Chief Jason Plunkett, endorsed and highly recommended by Chief Singletary, who was derailed by a leaked document that accused Plunket of being a racist; the document that completely exonerated Plunkett was withheld until the damage was done, however.
Williams, as he has done often, selected someone from out-of-town to take on one of the highest paying jobs the city has to offer. Williams’ plan to pick Troy Price as the new chief did not pass with a vote of council, though, as it was made clear that only a local candidate could get the votes needed to be confirmed. Then, Williams jetted off to a meeting in New Jersey where he serves on the board of the NFBPA (National Forum of Black Public Administrators) – again, of course, on the city’s dime – missing the city-hosted retirement party of departing Chief Singletary attended by hundreds of fellow officers, public officials, family and friends honoring the chief for his 54 years of public service.
Williams’ out-of-town hiring choices may be explained in the first part of the NFBPA’s mission statement: “The mission of the NFBPA is embodied in the organization’s commitment to strengthen the position of blacks within the field of public administration.”
New BPD Chief Tim Ocnaschek, of Beaumont, was not even in Williams’ five finalist candidates for the chief position.
According to sources in the city, Williams working on hiring a new police chief is why he couldn’t be bothered with fire department contract negotiations until July. As of the city council adopting a 2025 budget Sept. 17, Williams still hadn’t secured a contract with the firefighters.
Funding for things such as the fire department brings us to the latest in Williams’ last-minute work productions – the 2025 budget. The original budget, presented with a cover letter from the city manager dated Aug. 16, was rife with errors, misstatements, blatant “budget only” expenditures and over-exaggerations of anticipated revenues.
Called to the carpet over the material deficiencies in the budget, miraculously, a new budget was produced – which was claimed to be a copy of the old budget with the problems “fixed.” A 10 p.m. statement released from the city of Beaumont the night before council was required to vote on the proposed 2025 budget, credited to the city manager, purported to clear up inaccuracies in a Sept. 12 media report, stating, “The City feels it is our responsibility to be transparent with the citizens of Beaumont about the City’s finances and to provide the citizens truthful information about its finances.”
What’s true is that the city still hasn’t provided an accurate assessment of the city’s finances. Though the public had only had one day to review the new proposed budget before the council voted to approve it, make no mistake, it was new – not the original with adjustments. In fact, from the new charter-mandated letter from the city manager explaining the budget, proposed expenditures grew by $24 million from the time the budget was first submitted. Reported full time equivalent staff grew by 61 and anticipated revenue grew by $2 million. This is not the same budget proposed in August – despite the city manager’s back-dated letter to the council stating that this information was submitted a month ago. The budget, which swelled from 200-plus pages to 300-plus pages, also now contains wording for a $71 million bond referendum not mentioned in the original document.
Further, if city administration were wanting to be, quoting the city manager’s statement, “transparent with the citizens of Beaumont about the city’s finances and to provide the citizens truthful information about its finances,” then why was the “new” budget not shared with the public on Sept. 11, when it was given to council members? Instead, after first being rebuffed in an attempt to get a copy of the new budget, The Examiner was provided confirmation that it was indeed made available to the public – on Sept. 16, the day before the budget vote was to take place.
The city manager blaming “software” for gross inaccuracies readily apparent to anyone taking five minutes to glance over the proposed budget fails to account for the fact that humans are responsible for imputing the data. And, it also fails to account for inaccuracies even in the new budget that again misstate fund balances from year to year.
December 2023, we were put on notice that the city manager’s financial dealings were amiss. When the CFO for the city of Beaumont walked out on a six-figure salary just before Christmas, with no other job on the hook, stating that a sense of ethics prompted the move, elected leaders of the municipality should have seen the red flag.
Former Beaumont CFO Todd Simoneaux served the city for years without reproach, overseeing a fund balance that would allow for the quality of life of our community to flourish, as well as set aside enough funds for especially rainy days – which we’ve had a lot of in recent years. It only took the longtime CFO roughly a year with City Manager Williams to realize that the high-dollar hire cared little-to-none about the fiscal solvency of the city he moved to in order to collect a million-dollar payday in a few short years.
When Simoneaux resigned, he even gave a written warning to those in charge of Beaumont’s budget and fund balance, advising that the administration was misinforming the public as to its fiscal standing.
“I feel this is the correct decision for me to make from both a personal and professional perspective,” Simoneaux wrote in his resignation letter filed with the city Dec. 10, 2023. “It is crucial that I stand by my convictions and ethical principles, even if it means stepping away from a position I hold dear.”
For over 18 years with the city, Simoneaux shared, “I have felt confident about the financial position and budget practices and philosophies of the city.
“However, during the most recent budget process, I raised financial concerns about the proposed budget and feel that those concerns were not fully addressed in the final budget that was submitted to council and those concerns could adversely affect the future financial condition of the city.”
That was for the 2024 budget. Now, with the 2025 budget presented to council with a new CFO, City Manager Williams blames new staff and new software for “glitches” that materially misstate revenues and expenditures by millions of dollars.
No one on the council had an appropriate amount of time to review the budget, as the city administration failed to accurately portray the city’s finances, but that didn’t stop the majority from voting to approve the visibly flawed new budget presented to the elected officials just days before the vote.
Taylor Neild and Randy Feldschau were the only councilmembers voting not to accept the subpar work product. Neild and Feldschau were outvoted by a majority electing to accept a misstated budget rather than require transparency in the city’s finance department – including Mayor Roy West, who said that he understood millions can be misstated when changing software, A.J. Turner, Chris Durio and Audwin Samuel, who offered zero input in the conversation except to motion to approve whatever it was that Williams put before the elected body.
Williams may tip-toe the line, but that line is tightly held together by city council members holding allegiance to staff instead of doing the job of protecting the interests of citizens who vote them into office. City council is elected to be the caretaker of its citizens’ funds. If they do not hold the staff acountable for accuracy, honesty and integrity, they should be fired.