City of Dublin and its finance director Kim Seider received much praise at the Monday night council meeting in regards to the annual audit.
Boucher, Morgan and Young’s auditor Jeremy Shell congratulated the city on being the very first FY 2024-25 audit the company has presented, and gave the city an “unqualified opinion” which is the best opinion an entity can receive on an audit.
“There have been times when you guys were almost two and three years behind on audits, so congratulations,” he said.
Shell discussed the audit results with the city including a largescale big picture of the city’s cash balance which changed from $2.8 million in 2024 to $1.4 million in 2025.
“It’s not quite as concerning as what you are thinking,” Shell said.
Part of the 50% decrease was $272,000 of ARPA funds that were spent, $223,000 in unspent bond funds used for water and sewer projects, there was $130,000 more in debt service between these two years with a couple of those notes being paid off.
“We spent some time looking at the budget and it was just death by a thousand cuts. Some of the revenues came in under what they were budgeted, and some of the expenditures were over,” Shell said. Within the audit, there is a paragraph from Seider stating that something in that budget just didn’t work, and the city has taken a much more conservative approach to budgeting for this year, he said.
“We’ve had discussions about staying true to the budget. We shouldn’t ever go over on it,” he said. “We shouldn’t approve a purchase order unless there is money in that line item.”
After unanimously approving the audit, the council (minus absent member Bo Kabala) also approved the issuance of certificates of obligation for a $210,000 match for a $2.9 million grant from the Texas Water Development Board.
The project itself will be to replace a 14-inch transmission line from the Upper Leon Master Meter off CR 339 all the way to the water tower.
The original 1970’s line is steel, and when it breaks it costs the city significant time and money to fix, Interim City Manager Cameron Ray said.
“This has definitely been about teamwork,” Ray said.
The payments amount to about $10,000 a year for the next 20 years, at zero percent interest, D’anne Carson of Government Capital who is the city’s financial advisor, explained.
The city also just received word they got another $2.4 million grant for work on its wastewater treatment plant also through the Texas Water Development Board.
After several months of discussion, council unanimously approved the adoption of a formal library materials reconsideration policy.
The policy officially establishes a five-person committee which will be utilized in the event that a library material receives a request for reconsideration. The committee will only meet is a formal request for reconsideration is made.
Those on the committee must be a resident of the city of Dublin, must be registered voters, 18 or older, cannot be employed or directly oversee the Dublin Public Library or the Dublin Library Board of Directors.
Potential committee members may be solicited and identified by the Library Director and the Library Board, and then those recommendations will be given to council. The council retains the full discretion to appoint or decline to appoint any recommended candidate.
Committee members will serve 2-year terms and can be reappointed for two additional terms (not to serve for more than six years). After completing these terms, an applicant must be off the committee for six years.
Another addition to the approved policy is that complete removal of a material is the last resort. Committee members may recommend retaining the material in its current location, recommend moving it to a more appropriate section, restricting minor access or remove the material from the collection if it fails to meet selection standards (removal is the last resort), the policy states.
Council originally began discussing the item in November after a complaint regarding a library book was brought forth on social media regarding “Sex is a Funny Word” by Cory Silverberg.
The library has had the book for 10 years with it circulating 10 times by library patrons. No one had ever complained on this book before, and it was originally purchased through a Texas Book Fair Grant utilizing recommendations made by the Texas Library Association.
After a series of public hearings, council unanimously approved a $35,000 expenditure to aid the Corner Lot Gang getting a new digital sign.
“We really want to thank Donna and Steve Hightower for all the work over the years at the Corner Lot,” Councilmember Nancy Williams said.
After public hearings, a replat request and a variance was approved for property at 224 East Dobkins.
Developer Joseph Borges is in the process of purchasing the land, and will be putting two new single-wide manufactured homes on the property.
The replat and variance request were needed in order to make each home’s doors face a street and in order to build a front and a back porch on each home.
Ray explained that the single-wide homes were in step with the rest of the neighborhood and the property is zoned MH-1.
The meeting ended in an executive session after which the council voted to begin taking applications for municipal judge and city manager.
Disclaimer: Citizen managing editor Paul Gaudette is the president of the Dublin Library board and Wyndi Veigel-Gaudette is his spouse.