TAFT, Tx — The City of Taft's former Fiance Director misappropriated at least $30,000, and the city's general fund balance is critically low, according to the Taft Police Deparment and a 6 investigates review of financial documents. Now Taft Police and the Texas Rangers are investigating how city employees spent taxpayer money.
KRIS 6 conducted an initial review of bank statements and credit card transactions. The statements reveal questionable purchases on a city credit card used by Taft's former finance director LeeAnn Goben that total just over $30,000 between June 25 and September 29 of this year. As 6 Investigates previously reported, Goben resigned from the city last month after admitting she had misappropriated money.
The financial documents show Goben withdrew more than $10,000 from ATM's, made payments of over $12,000 to CashApp accounts, and just over $600 to PayPal during this time frame. She also made electricity payments, bought fireworks, went to the movies, and spent over $3,000 at H-E-B.
Taft City Manager Ryan Smith previously told 6 Investigates he was verbally notified by the bank that there were "suspicious charges that appeared to be personal." He also told KRIS 6 that there was an "admission by the person involved."
An email obtained by 6 Investigates reveals the city initially believed these personal charges to be "around $1,000" and that the "council has accepted her resignation in lieu of termination with the requirement to repay the funds."
That email, sent by Smith to Taft Police Chief John Landreth, states, "They (the council) have decided not to move forward with any charges at this time."
Landreth told 6 Investigates the department is not yet done with its investigation but has already uncovered $50,000 to $80,000 in misappropriated funds.
"There are some very obvious and very clear violations of law," he said. "We do expect arrests to be made. It's hard to know exactly who's all involved, but we know that it started around December 2023, maybe even November. And it's went on all the way to last month when we were notified by the bank."
Landreth said he is concerned with what appears to be a lack of oversight and that it didn't appear the City Manager was reviewing credit card statements.
“I’m disgusted, I really am. We've been trying to tell them they've had issues for a while now,” Landreth said.
"This should have been caught a long time ago," he added. "The fact that we didn't catch it, and a person at the bank who I'm sure they see hundreds of bank statements, the fact that they saw it and caught it and notified City Hall staff. That's a problem. We should have caught this a long time ago. A long time ago. And that's that's on us."
Earlier this year, Landreth notified city leadership about concerns related to the payment of overtime. He then contacted 6 Investigates after he said those concerns were ignored.
Taft City Secretary Andrea Gomez was arrested in May, and in September was indicted on four counts of tampering with government records with intent to defraud.
In addition to credit card statements, 6 Investigates reviewed payroll records from January 1 to September 30 of this year. Those documents reveal Goben paid herself a salary nearly every week, while other employees were paid bi-weekly. On the day she resigned, she paid herself a month's salary.
6 Investigates learned that despite the warning from the bank, Goben's financial access was not immediately revoked by the City Manager.
Taft Mayor Leonard Vasquez said while the council initially chose not to pursue criminal charges, it did task Smith with investigating the matter. As for why Goben's access was not immediately revoked, he said the council was told she did not have any credit cards and it was the responsibility of the City Manager.
"Our city manager is the oversight person," Vasquez said.
The Taft City Council approved the Fiscal Year 2024-25 budget last month, but a review of that budget reveals an ending fund balance was omitted from the document provided to the council.
A review of general fund bank statements obtained by 6 Investigates reveals there was just under $2 million in that account on September 1, 2023. On August 31, 2024, that balance was just over $600,000.
On Monday, the Taft Police Department took delivery of three new fully-equipped police vehicles with a price tag of $250,000. That purchase was approved as part of a $3 million loan the city received in late-2022. However, the funds previously allocated for this purchase are gone, Landreth said.
Landreth said the City Manager told him that the city will not pay for these vehicles and that they need to be returned to the dealer.
"We're at this point where they're fully equipped, they've got Taft Police Department all down the side of them. And now we're telling this company that we can't accept delivery, which when this thing was, when this purchase was made, the money was in the bank. We just got the $3 million loan. The money was earmarked for this particular purchase, and now somehow the money's disappeared. So I've got an issue with that," Landreth said.
6 Investigates tried to ask Smith about this purchase, and the city's financial position. He said the city is not considering bankruptcy but refused to answer questions on camera, instead citing an ordinance that does not allow him to conduct media interviews.
Look, I don't know what's going on in this city, I can't even begin to try to explain it. It's very sad that the people are having to pay the price they're paying.
Vasquez said he would ask for this ordinance to be placed on a future council agenda.
"If we have to change it to where the city manager is allowed to speak to the media, which I don't see why we shouldn't do that because ultimately he is the one person that's in charge of the city," he said.
The City Council is set to meet Tuesday and its agenda includes several items related to the city's financial status, including an item that would freeze all expenses, with the exception of essential personnel.
"On Tuesday (we're going to) see what our interim finance director has prepared for us, the actual numbers, and to make sure that we stay on top of this going forward," Vasquez said. "As far as making sure that we either get a day-to-day finance report from the city manager and we'll just move forward from there and make sure that we can get individuals and hire employees that will be honest and are willing to work for the City of Taft."
6 Investigates continues to dig into financial documents and will bring updates on this developing story.
