The Eutaw City Council voted to adopt the audit for the 2021 fiscal year. Excitement filled the room Wednesday morning, as the city said this was a step in the right direction.
Prior to this, an independent financial audit hasn't been done in ten years.
“This means a lot to get these audits done, it means a lot for my community, we can go forward, we can ask for help and show we are using our money and utilizing our funds in the appropriate way," said Mayor Latasha Johnson.
Although Johnson is in her first term as mayor, she said she has been taking every step over the last year and a half to get the city where it needs to be.
“I'm taking full responsibility. It will not happen again. I'm here every day. Even though I'm a nurse at night, I am here making sure the team is doing what they are supposed to do," said Johnson.
Now that the city is caught up on audits, they can start applying for grants. A top priority is making necessary water and sewer upgrades.
“A lot of people complain saying the water is brown, but the water is safe. It’s safe to drink. We have to get approved by ADEM (Alabama Department of Environmental Management), so the water is safe, but I am hoping once we get these grants that we can get the automatic flush to continue to flush the water so we won’t have to worry about seeing brown water," said Johnson.
The issues with the water comes down to a need to update the infrastructure.
SEE ALSO: Eutaw water system needs major upgrades
“They are old, they are poorly maintained, and honestly we don’t know who’s responsibility it is at this point because they were put in so long ago," said Corey Martin, certified water/wastewater operator. "It’s a 16-inch pipe. Roughly a million gallons of water between Eutaw and Boligee. We are going to reduce that to a six-inch pipe."
Martin said they will also be using plastics instead of asbestos lined cement.
Eutaw is also looking at getting the money to go to an automatic flushing system.
"A lot of things we have been working on is that 3.5 million dollar SRF loan and grant from ADEM. That will allow us to put some automatic flushing stations in, allow us to do some automated water quality monitoring so we can see the problems before we get calls, and it will allow us to deploy IOT type applications to our fire hydrants," said Martin.
In addition to that, water meters get read once a month. With some funding, the city can upgrade and get a read on them every 15 minutes.
“It's gonna cost a lot of money but I have faith we will get it done. I might not get it done in the next three years, but I'm going to work very hard to get help to get it done," said Johnson.
Now that the city is eligible to apply for grants, some other things they are looking at doing is renovating park, getting new police cruisers and fire trucks, doing work on the community center and getting things for the children.