City also stymied from applying for state grants
Presidio County
Several area water infrastructure projects in the planning stages have hit a roadblock for construction funding after Presidio County failed to complete its annual audits — leaving the county and city unable to apply for new state water grants.
The Texas Water Development Board’s (TWPD) application for Water Supply and Infrastructure grants requires that counties be up to date on their annual audits. Presidio County is still trying to complete its 2024 audit. It’s a situation the county found itself in last year as well, with potentially millions of dollars in grants unavailable.
The current project that received planning grants and a loan totaling $4.6 million in the TPWD’s Economically Distressed Area Program include water new supply systems to the Las Pampas and Shafter, and in Marfa, sewer improvements to Fort DA Russell and water and wastewater improvements to the East Heights area.
Marfa water customers currently are paying $4.44 per connection per month to pay Presidio County, which took out the EDAP loan totalling $1.6 million.
Trey Gerfers, general manager of the Presidio County Underground Water Conservation District, along with consultants, took charge of the EDAP projects and made headway in specific proposals and plans. When TPWD gave him word that the county would not be able to apply for the next phase of funding for construction, he began talks with the City of Marfa about applying separately for its projects.
But there was a hitch. The county had taken the lead in the initial EDAP grant funding, which required the applying entity to own the property and infrastructure to be funded. Presidio County executed an interlocal agreement with Marfa allowing it to take ownership of the Fort DA Russell and East Heights land — thus meeting the grant requirements — with ownership returning to the city after the grant loan was repaid.
TPWD has told Gerfers the city is not eligible to apply on its own for the new grant because it doesn’t own the infrastructure. Efforts to find a solution have been unsuccessful, and the grant application is due July 30.
“Now that [agreement] is coming back to bite us because now, since we’re applying for the funds, they’re saying, ‘Just show us the documentation that you own your own infrastructure,’” Teresa Todd, legal advisor to the city, told the City Council Tuesday night. “Well, we did own our own infrastructure, but the very same agency required it to be under Presidio County, and so that’s causing a problem now that we’re applying ourselves.”
Todd recommended the city go ahead and apply for the grant money and stress to TWDB that it shouldn’t be precluded from funding on a technicality. “Let’s just try and see what happens. All they can do is tell us ‘no.’ Right?” she said. “And if they tell us no, we’ll know this is the glitch.”
City Councilmember Travis Acremman agreed. “ And if they try and hang us on a technicality this time, the work that [Gerfers] has done is still valuable,” he said. “There will be another grant.”
The ongoing problem of incomplete county audits and the impact on grant applications has been an continuing concern but one never addressed completely. County Auditor Alicia Sanchez said Tuesday that although her title carries “auditor,” it’s the entire county government’s responsibility to ensure completion of the audits. Her office is involved in almost all county business, including other grants and contracts.
In last year’s budget discussions, county officials agreed to fund making one of Sanchez’s part-time employees full time to help with the workload of audits. That move never came to fruition, although the 394th District Court judge — who oversees the county auditor’s office — recently approved the same change, as did a Commissioners Court vote last week. The upgrade will still need to be approved by the Commissioners Court in the new budget and wouldn’t take effect until October.
Sanchez said part of the problem is that the county does not “have the staff to go after all these grants.” “It’s hard to go after so many grants when you have no one to manage them,” she said. “They need an administrator. At the end of the day, everything falls in my office.”
County Judge Joe Portillo could not be reached for comment on the audits and grant situation, but it’s certain that the county’s second failure to apply for construction grants for the water projects will be a topic of discussion in upcoming budget deliberations.
The town of Shafter, which has been under a boil-water notice for more than four years due to inadequate state-required water quality testing from the well owned by its neighboring silver mine, had land donated and a new well planned under the initial EDAP funding. David Long, Shafter Water District president, said the word about audits delaying new funding is discouraging, but that the district will keep working toward a goal of a new water system. “The water board is going forward, but we are kinda dead in the water right now,” he said.
