Brownsville city leaders weigh options to replace missing money

HAYWOOD COUNTY, Tenn. — Another meeting is called in Brownsville for more answers on missing money.

“Again, I apologize for not keeping better control of the money that was spent. It’s gone. It’s gone,” Vice Mayor Leon King said.

The money is gone, but the question now is how does the city of Brownsville get it back.

After leaving the last meeting with more questions, many residents came back Monday.

The meeting started with a plan proposing that Brownsville should borrow money from the state and rely on taxpayer money to pay it back.

“Do the workshop, let us cut what we’re going to cut, then if we have to go to this note, we’ll go to this note,” Alderman John Simmons said.

City leaders voted on the plan three times and ended with a 2-2 vote and an abstention to not go with the plan.

One of the reasons why the city doesn’t have enough money came from hiring too many employees. To fix the matter, the mayor and aldermen discussed laying off more than 20 city workers.

“We need more answers. We need more answers to where everything is going before it’s spent, not after it’s spent,” citizen Ron Michaels said. “Because now we’re at the point where we have to lay off city workers.”

Citizens were also concerned about why the money is missing in the first place. Some said they think it has a lot to do with management.

“Feel like that possibly at this time the big bulk of managing the money needs to go to the Board of Aldermen, and the mayor needs to step out of the way,” citizen Larry Fitts said.

Some residents also said they recognize the aldermen for taking responsibility for not better managing the money.

“You know they have took responsibility for this,” Fitts said. “The aldermen have stood up and said ‘look, it’s our fault we did not watch it close enough.'”

In the meantime, a workshop is being put in place to better decide what the next move will be.

The mayor and aldermen were asked to comment but declined to speak.