MARFA — Ernie Villarreal tendered his resignation to the Marfa School Board this week after being largely absent from board meetings for the 2023-2024 school year. The school board will now solicit letters of interest from the community to fill his unexpired term, which will be up in May 2025.
The Big Bend Sentinel was in the process of reporting on Villarreal’s lack of participation on the board when the news of his resignation was shared by a board member and confirmed by him Tuesday. (Board members were notified of Villarreal’s resignation during the executive session, or private, portion of the board meeting held on Monday.)
Since June 2023, Villarreal has not attended any board meetings in person, and has only participated remotely via Zoom or by phone for three out of 13 regular and special meetings, according to meeting minutes.
Villarreal declined to comment on a reason for his long absence from the board or share additional comments about his resignation. School Board President Teresa Nuñez — Villarreal’s sister — explained that he is traveling for work but is still a resident of Presidio County.
Per the board’s policy manual, board members “must remain a resident of the district throughout the term of office,” and any board member who ceases to reside in the district “vacates the office.” Board policy also states that board members will “diligently prepare for and attend Board meetings.”
The school board and Interim Superintendent Arturo Alferez declined to comment on Villarreal’s absence or his resignation. In a written statement Nuñez said the board was looking forward to welcoming a new board member.
“The MISD School Board is committed to making the best decisions on behalf of its staff and student body,” Nuñez wrote. “We hope and encourage members of the community to submit their interest in joining our School board and share in our mission for Shorthorn excellence.”
Villarreal was first appointed to the board in September 2021 after the resignation of Mark Cash. He filed to keep his seat in 2022, was uncontested and began his first full term.
The school board has not held an election since 2021 due to a lack of candidates vying for the trustee positions. The most recent candidate filing period for the May 4 General Election — which closed last week — saw incumbents Stela Fuentez, Rene Gonzales and Yolanda Jurado file, meaning the election will be canceled again this year for the third consecutive year.
Villarreal resigned, giving no explanation, from his longtime employee position as business manager and tax assessor-collector at Valentine ISD in November 2022. He was put on administrative leave in October of 2022 shortly after a routine 2021-22 school year audit revealed $165,000 in unauthorized transactions — including “improper coding of transactions, altered documents, payments to fictitious employees and unauthorized withdrawals of the district’s funds” — had occurred due to a lack of oversight on the district’s finances.
Villarreal, who oversaw the district’s finances during the audited period, was put on administrative leave as a “stop gap measure pending the outcome of an investigation into the financial discrepancies,” Superintendent Debbie Engle told The Sentinel at the time.
In February 2023, the district hired an outside firm to conduct a more in-depth forensic audit, and state and federal authorities launched an investigation. Engle told The Sentinel this week that, as far as she was aware, the case was turned over from the FBI to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas over six months ago, but no arrests had been made.
She said she was not sure if the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) had indicted anyone or if the case had been taken to a grand jury. Despite her attempts to communicate with U.S. Attorney Scott Greenbaum, she said she had “not heard a damn thing” and was “being stonewalled.”
The prolonged situation has left the district in a bind — it can’t collect on insurance money to help cover the $165,000 loss in school funds without making the forensic audit public, which it is unable to do while the status of the prosecution is pending. “So until they’ve decided what they want to do on the legal end, we’re at a standstill because of it,” Engle said.
The USAO declined to provide an update on the status of the case. The district, which chose not to rehire for Villarreal’s position in order to get the district’s financial situation cleaned up before bringing in a new staff person, is finally now looking for someone to fill the role, Engle said.
