Teague Overpaid by $1M, Says Forensic Auditor to Fairfield Council

“It would appear that the City of Teague was overpaid by $1,063,703 over the period of time,” related Bill Brown during his presentation to Fairfield City Council on Tuesday, July 9, 2019.

Brown’s firm had been asked by Fairfield’s attorneys to analyze the Interlocal Agreement between Fairfield and Teague, going back as far as possible – which in this case, was back to 1995.

A lawsuit, filed by the City of Teague against the City of Fairfield, is currently in Appeals Court. Teague had alleged misuses and misappropriations of special revenue funds.

The current findings presented by Brown were arrived at by using the formula stipulated in the Agreement between the two cities, and examining Fairfield’s annual financial audits to see what had actually transpired.

Brown was part of the original team that conducted a special Forensic Audit for the City of Fairfield about a year and a half ago. They were tasked to look for any fraud, theft, waste, abuse or collusion by City staff, covering the fiscal years ending September 30 of 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Although no evidence of fraud was discovered, and no intentional misdeeds by those employed by the City of Fairfield were found, the team did identify instances that could be categorized as waste or abuse.

One of the issues involved money transfers that may have been taken out of the TDCJ – Boyd Unit fund which, according to Brown, may not have been appropriate as they did not comply with the Interlocal Agreement between Fairfield and Teague.

“In the process of looking at this particular fund, we found the fund was out of balance by about $286,000,” said Brown.

However, it was only after the forensic audit had been completed, that it was discovered that an adjusting entry in the amount of $286,000 had never posted to the general ledger, making the TDCJ fund appear out of balance.

Brown stated his belief that this particular information may have been misinterpreted by some people in the City of Teague.

“We weren’t suggesting that the money was gone,” said Brown. “We were saying that the balance – it was off.”

Brown is a CPA licensed attorney in the State of Texas, a former FBI agent, and has worked in forensic accounting for the last thirty-nine years.

Click here to see the breakdown provided by Brown to Fairfield Council members last week.