DID GBIC LOSE NEARLY $3,000,000 IN FISCAL YEAR 2020?

 

Helen Ramirez, GBIC Director and Deputy City Manager

I've been sitting on some horrifying information for over two weeks.  

Through a Public Information Request sent October 7, 2021 I discovered that during fiscal year 2020, from October 2019 to September 2020, GBIC lost $2,929.964,23.

The 4A entity is funded with 1/4 cents from every dollar of sales tax revenue received by the City of Brownsville.  That money, earmarked for "economic development" projects in the city, is dispersed by a seven member board of citizens supervised by a salaried staff of five.

Revenue from GBIC's portion of sales tax was $5,179,964.23 for fiscal year 2020 while expenses were $8,109,130.10 for the same period, showing a net loss for the fiscal year of $2,929,165.87.

Was that shortfall made up with money from the City of Brownsville's General Fund?

Evidently not, because, according to Deputy City Manager Helen Ramirez, who took over as GBIC Director in February 2021, replacing the much-maligned Mario Lozoya, GBIC had been "sitting on $13,000,000 in the bank," instead of using those monies for economic development.

It was at that time also that the entire GBIC board was replaced by the mayor and city commission with the promise that a new board would be selected "before the end of the year."

Director Ramirez also continues to function in two high paying jobs with the City of Brownsville; Deputy City Manager and GBIC Director.

It's been noticed that the last two months GBIC has not actually been meeting, but simply putting out the identical agenda of the City Commission.

This may be to prevent the charge of a "walking quorum," the mayor and city commissioners are all members of GBIC, so whenever they get together, it's a "meeting."

Anyway, what appeared to be an annual shortfall of nearly $3 million has also been somewhat mitigated by other revenues; interest from the GBIC checking account, but primarily a return of $564,000 of funding that failed to meet the criteria of the funding agreement.  

So, that reduced the annual loss to a mere $2,189,579.70.  But, don't worry.  There's money in the bank according to Ms. Ramirez.