King William Board Budget Breakdown Continues and Library Contractor Finally Chosen.
Another Board of Supervisors meeting and another fresh reminder that King William’s budget woes show no sign of letting up.
SEE VIDEO
INTERIM FINANCE DIRECTOR CLEANS UP BUDGET
The new interim Finance Director Julie Kaylor gave an eye-opening update at the August 25th, 2025 Board of Supervisors meeting, summarizing just what the finance department has been diligently working on during the past few weeks.
Since joining the county last month, Ms. Kaylor was tasked with a line-by-line “rebuild” of the budget previously approved by the Board.
Her team was required to go back and essentially fix a sloppy budget that the Board of Supervisors voted to pass in May.
In well-run counties, budget fine-tuning is mostly done BEFORE a budget is passed, not after. Good Supervisors strive for a budget that’s balanced, reconciled and basically ready to implement from day one.
But that’s hard to do when chaos and financial mismanagement have set the tone from the start.
A TRAIL OF TURMOIL
As previously reported by the King William Informer, the Board has either fired or forced the resignation of numerous employees on the finance team over the last several months.
They cancelled budget meetings and inside sources recently revealed they refused to properly communicate with the finance team or hire auxiliary staff when necessary.
SPENDING SPREE
The Board has also made financial reconciliation nearly impossible through unchecked spending.
The King William Informer reported the Board’s rubber-stamping of massive budget amendments through the consent agenda, and appropriating funds to funnel millions into unvetted pet-projects like the ARTIFICIAL TURF FIELD. Click HERE for article.
For remaining staff trying to fix the damage, cleaning up a broken budget months after it was passed is no easy feat, but likely comes as no surprise.
King William AUDIT IS LOOMING
The finance department is also scrambling to sweep up the mess because the county is about to undergo an audit.
Ms. Kaylor and her team are racing to reconcile and repair the budget because an annual audit doesn’t just look at spending - it checks whether the county’s financial records are accurate, consistent, and compliant with state and federal standards.
If the budget hasn’t been reconciled properly (because of department upheaval, “Consent Agenda Cram”, or sloppy record-keeping), the auditors are going to spot those discrepancies. The team knows this, which is why they’re under pressure to clean up the books before the audit fieldwork begins.
CONSEQENCES
If auditors find any material weaknesses or deficiencies, our county is looking at higher borrowing costs, more scrutiny and political fallout.
For taxpayers, it means possibly cutting services, higher taxes, and broken trust in county leadership.
The interim county attorney Benny Zhang also walked the Board through acknowledgment that if their budget miscalculation exceeds 1% or more of total expenditures, by law (VA CODE 15.2-2507) they have to reappropriate that money, taking the budget back to the public for a hearing.
In other words, if the Board’s mistakes are big enough, they are legally required to fix them in front of the PUBLIC rather than quietly covering them up.
LIBRARY CONTRACTOR
A library contractor was finally chosen for the renovation of the Parks and Recreation building, the sight of the new Upper King William library.
As you can hear in the attached video above, Cathy Stevens presented three different companies and their estimates. She recommended the Board go with the lowest bidder, “Henderson Inc.” with a bid of $464,837 and contingency amount of $15,617.
While portions of this project were already budgeted, what was NOT presented or talked about is exactly how much this project will cost when it is all said and done.
Construction is expected to begin in October of 2025 and completed in approximately three months.
QUESTIONS OF CONFLICT?
It was noticed that Supervisor Ben Edwards seems to have special knowledge and even affection for the choice. You can hear him express familiarity with the company and owner in the video, raising questions about how well-connected the chosen contractor is within county leadership.
Given the conflict-of-interest concerns already surrounding this Board, Edwards’ special endorsement of the contractor only adds to public suspicion.
Stay tuned to Tales from a Domestic Terrorist and the King William Informer for updates. And as always, if you have any tips or information, please message me directly or email at kingwilliaminformer@gmail.com.