MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Tipton County town of Mason, Tennessee has worked out a debt payment plan that could satisfy state officials in the wake of a takeover of the beleaguered town’s finances.
State Rep. Antonio Parkinson, a Memphis Democrat and member of the House Democratic Caucus and Black Caucus of Tennessee Legislators, said in a release that the plan would get Mason “back on its feet.”
Last week, the state Comptroller’s office took action following what officials called years of financial mismanagement that left the town’s water and sewer fund in deep debt. The Comptroller’s office announced it was taking control of Mason’s finances after town officials fought against giving up the town’s charter.
Tuesday, State Comptroller Jason Mumpower met with the vice mayor of Mason, Virginia Rivers, and members of the Tennessee Black Caucus.
Town officials told Mumpower they voted this week to use the first half of Mason’s American Rescue Plan allocation, approximately $227,000, to pay back a significant amount of the money that had been improperly borrowed over many years from its water and sewer fund.
The Comptroller’s office, which estimated the total amount borrowed from the fund at $597,905, called the town’s action “a significant step.”
“Later this week, auditors from the Comptroller’s Office will verify that Mason has indeed transferred this money. If so, we have pledged to immediately restructure the town’s financial supervision plan,” said John Dunn, spokesman for Mumpower’s office, in an email.
“Mason and the Comptroller’s Office also agreed that if Mason can produce a balanced budget for fiscal year 2022-2023 and have its audits completed by this summer, the Comptroller’s Office can scale back its enhanced supervision over the town’s financial operations. In the meantime, our financial supervision will continue.”
Mason, a majority-Black town of about 1,200, sits about five miles from a new Ford electric truck and battery manufacturing facility that will soon bring an estimated 30,000 jobs to a rural area of West Tennessee.
Parkinson said leaders in Mason questioned why the state had waited until recently to take action on the town’s financial problems, which had been incurred over decades under previous, mostly white town leadership.
“The prospect of the state temporarily controlling the finances of the majority Black, majority Democratic town on the eve of a major development in the area triggered national news,” he said.
Dunn acknowledged that Mason’s financial problems extended back 20 years, but said they had become more severe in the past three or four years under current leadership.
Dunn said corrective action plans set up in 2013 and 2016 had seen some of the town’s fund debt repaid, but the town had continued to improperly borrow and the debt expanded.
Then, last fall, a federal prison in Mason closed, decreasing the town’s population by more than 500. Dunn said the prison accounted for about one-third of Mason’s water and sewer fund revenue.
“That is the real crisis point that really triggered this,” prompting the office to begin meeting with town officials in 2021, Dunn said.
Parkinson said the Black Caucus would continue to monitor the town’s financial supervision by the Tennessee Comptroller, to help ensure transparency.
