Ellis County seeking answers as external audit finds unexplained past budgeting anomalies

A concerning audit report about Ellis County government’s budgeting process and procedures was brought to the public’s attention during the Tuesday, Aug. 19, meeting of the commissioners’ court.

The audit was conducted by the county’s existing external audit firm, Pattillo, Brown, and Hill LLP.

County Judge John Wray read from a prepared statement when the agenda item was taken up.

He noted that the county’s annual budgeting process was already underway when he took office May 15, 2025, with the final budget for 2026 adopted Sept. 16, roughly four months later.

“I found last year’s budget process to be unlike anything I have ever experienced in either the private or public sector,” said Wray, an attorney by profession and who has previously served Ellis County for several terms as its state representative. “Among many other serious deficiencies that I observed, I found the budget process to be very, very understaffed, resulting in a lack of timely dissemination of critical information to the county judge and the county commissioners.

“Over the past few budget cycles, the county had become too dependent on a single staff member for compiling the budget,” he said. “This staff member already had a crushing load of work unrelated to budget preparation. He tendered his resignation shortly before the budget was adopted, and his last day of employment with the county was the Friday after budget adoption.

“To say I was taken aback by last year’s experience is an extreme understatement,” Wray said, noting that he alerted multiple elected officials about his observations and, after “comparing notes,” recommended an examination of “several aspects of the budget process.”

“It was my opinion at that time that my concerns were the result of good faith human errors made by an overworked staff member working in IT on an understaffed task,” said Wray, noting that Pattillo, Brown, and Hill was engaged Oct. 25. He said he was in contact throughout the auditing process with the firm, which submitted its final report to the county on April 16.

“The commissioners and I have been working on addressing the deficiencies found in the report, and several of our suggested fixes are contained in the proposed budget for fiscal year 2027,” Wray said, noting that the audit firm assured him “they were finding no indications of misappropriation of taxpayer money or criminal activity.”

A key audit finding was that the county had underestimated tax revenue for fiscal year 2026 in the budget adopted last September, which showed an anticipated tax revenue of about $100 million.

“However, the correct estimate is actually 106 million, plus or minus, as calculated by the audit firm,” Wray said, noting a roughly $6 million difference.

He said he and the commissioners have already implemented changes to the county’s budgeting process, including:

• filling a vacant position in the county auditor's office with a budget specialist

• the purchase of new, user-friendly software

• a more collaborative budgeting process involving more people

“All of these actions have been undertaken to increase transparency and participation in the budget process by you, the citizens and your elected officials such as the commissioners, sheriff, district attorney, and many others,” Wray said. “And yet there is more that needs to be done.”

Continuing, Wray said his concerns had turned to the county’s past several budgets.

“I realized that if the fiscal year ’26 budget underestimated tax revenue by a significant amount of $6 million, then perhaps prior budgets did the same thing. I immediately did a quick examination of the numbers for fiscal years ’23 through ’25 and became quite concerned that this is, in fact, the case,” Wray said. “In a nutshell, the county may have collected millions more dollars, perhaps as much as $20 million, than it budgeted to spend over the past four years, but over the past week I have not been able to account for where the money may have gone.

“To repeat, Ellis County appears to have collected significantly more tax money than it budgeted to spend over the last four years, and we cannot account for where the money went,” he said. “I was, and I remain, deeply troubled by all of this, and you should be too.”

With misgivings about the previous budgets, Wray said he has since contacted the district attorney as well as other officials, with the DA recommending that the county hire an external audit firm “to do a deep dive review of the county’s finances to find answers.”

“I will immediately begin searching for an appropriate audit firm and will bring forward a proposal for the commissioners’ court along with a projected cost as soon as reasonably possible,” Wray said. “I can assure you that we will perform a thorough investigation and we will find answers.”

He asked that the public not “rush to judgment” as he still believes “this situation occurred due to good faith human error.” Wray said he hasn’t assigned blame to anyone for the situation in which the county finds itself.

“I hope to put forward additional information to the public in the near future as others, and I continue to investigate,” he said.

The commissioners extended their appreciation to Wray for his service the past 15 months and for having taken the initiative to delve into the matter while serving in what is a short-term capacity. Wray, who was appointed county judge to serve out the remainder of previous County Judge Todd Little’s unexpired term, will leave the office as of Jan. 1, when the next county judge is sworn in. When Wray took office, he said he would not seek election to the seat.

“It’s, it’s been a, it’s a heavy burden, and it’s, I’ve been losing sleep over it, and the public has a right to know,” Wray said.

The next county judge is expected to be Kameron Raburn, former mayor and commissioner of the city of Ennis, who is unopposed on the November general ballot after having won the Republican Party nomination in the spring.

Editor's note: The above PDF includes the October 2025 engagement letter between Ellis County and Pattillo, Brown & Hill LLP along with the audit firm's April 2026 findings. The county also has posted the above to its official Facebook page.

Written by Jo Ann Livingston/In The Know Ellis.