By Barbara Augsdorfer, editor for the Effingham Herald
More than 100 people attended Rincon’s State of the City event April 3 at the Herald Center. During his speech, Mayor Kevin Exley highlighted several projects the city has completed during the past year and how it plans to implement future projects.
Most of the speech focused on the city’s finances and teamwork within City Hall.
“You have to have passion to make sure your city goes in the right direction,” Exley told the crowd.
“This council is results oriented. It has not slowed down – building relationships with the county instead of walls,” Exley continued.
“Great public service starts with great public servants,” Exley said of the staff and elected officials.
Exley praised the work the council has done in the past 18 months to mend the city’s relationship with the county and move forward.
He gave examples of some of the city’s recent hires such as city manager Robert Byrd and
“We have a council that understands that you get what you pay for -- hiring seasoned professionals like Robby Byrd and giving him the financial resources to hire others just like him.”
Some of the things Villafaña has done for the city, according to Exley, is she “put a great team in place,” and put the correct structure for the finance department in place that was needed to correct waste, improve return on investment opportunities as well as locating accounts the city didn’t know it had.
“We found $1.4 million that was going through a bill pay account that was sitting in Truist Bank, and Hadassah found it,” Exley said. “It was just every time somebody paid a water bill through bill pay, it went into an account and nobody knew about it, because there was nobody left (in City Hall) from the past.”
Exley went on to say that money the city has found in its coffers is being spent to improve the city for its residents.
“The city owes the residents a proper pace to live,” Exley said. Among the many improvements the city has worked on recently are upgraded equipment for the police department, improvements to the city’s parks, golf course, public works, and waste water treatment plant.
And, no the city is not “spending all the money until there are no reserves,” Exley dispelled rumors.
“Miss Hadassah will make sure that $25 million goes into an interest-bearing account, which should draw about $70 grand a month in interest that will be there with an SOP. The city is firm,” Exley said.
The $25 million is a one-year reserve for the city, and the $70,000 anticipated monthly interest, under the guidelines of the standard operating procedure, will be used for the benefit of the city.
Exley didn’t blame past councils or past mayors for any alleged financial oversights or failures, but said, “Tired eyes don't look as far. When you get new people in with new ideas, and people that are still working and are still sharp in their day-to-day business, you start seeing all types of things.”
Exley said Villafaña is currently getting the city caught up on audits for 2023 and 2024; and preparing for the 2025 audit.
“Timely audits are essential for transparency, regulatory compliance, and maintaining public trust, so we have to be ready for these audits,” Exley said. Additionally, the city has to have its audits current in order to apply for grants.
· Daily revenue recording and reconciliation to ensure accurate revenue tracking, eliminate discrepancies, and improve the efficiency in the city’s daily financial operation.
· ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system enhancement allows the city to notify specific areas of the city in cases of a local emergency such as a water main break or other issue.
· Utility usage tracking to let residents know when their usage is changing (possibly due to a leak) so the resident can get it checked out and fixed before they get a higher-than-expected bill.
· City credit card use – Exley said that the city has not had problems with employees using city credit cards in the past, but Villafaña’s team will establish a policy of clear expectations and ensure accountability when it comes to the city-issued credit cards.
The city’s senior citizens also have benefits with the city. Among these are a copy service – any resident age 65+ can come to City Hall to make copies.
“It might not sound like much, but to someone on a fixed income, buying printer ink is expensive,” Exley explained.
Another benefit for seniors is that instead of paying the increased rate for trash pickup, their trash pickup rate will roll back to the previous 2018 rate just by coming into City Hall and filling out the paperwork.
Environmental concerns
As for development and keeping the city “a little bit more like country,” Exley said the council has establish a “tree fund” that developers will pay into when they clear land. And the city will use that money to buy trees. He also cautioned developers, “There’s no such thing as a legacy pine. If you plant trees, you’re going to plant a tree that’s worth planting.”
The city has a specific tree ordinance that developers must adhere to.
Handing waste water was another issue the city had to deal with.
Rather than replacing the city’s wastewater treatment plant, which was close to capacity in 2020, the city council approved Byrd’s “Plan B” to upgrade the plant and implement a water-reuse program.
“Every company, every neighborhood that comes in, they’ll have to put in purple pipes (for irrigation),” Exley said. A test run of the system is planned for homes along the golf course.
Exley touched on several other items during his 90-minutes speech including EOM taking over public works with the condition of retaining the city’s current public works employees; the city’s recreation department and improvements to city parks; coordinating with the county on paving projects so an entire street is paved at the same time instead of just part; and working with the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) on future widening projects on Hwy. 21 to avoid traffic bottlenecks.
The video of Exley’s entire speech is available on the City of Rincon’s Facebook page, by clicking on: bit.ly/425hUYB.
