October 26, 2025
Town Of Benson Facing Serious Financial Issues
Not Enough Cash On Hand To Cover Current Expenses
BENSON – The Town of Benson owes more money than they have cash on hand. That’s what members of the Benson Town Council were told during a special-called meeting Monday night.
Former State Auditor Beth Wood, who is now the director of rural government services at a private accounting firm, was summoned last week to take a look at Benson’s cash position and report her findings.
The report caught town commissioners by surprise. They were shocked to learn the Town of Benson appears to be broke.
Wood submitted a snapshot report showing that as of July 18, 2025, the Town of Benson had a balance of $1,225,970.19 in their checking account. Two other checking accounts had balances of $208,404.90 and $28,555.76, bringing the total cash on hand to $1,462,930.85.
As of July 18, payments (checks) totaling $242,458.81 had been mailed to vendors and not yet cashed. There were additional pending payroll, fuel, water, and electricity payment drafts. Plus $234,397 in outstanding invoices had been paid, but the checks had not been mailed to vendors.
Calculating the expenditures currently due, on July 18, the Town of Benson had a negative cash position of ($578.262.66).
The financial summary said another $123,430 in recurring monthly bills for health insurance, vision and dental would be due in early-August. That number was not included in the negative cash position.
Some invoices that were due in June 2025 have yet to be paid.
Commissioner Will Chandler said, “I don’t think anybody sitting here thinks anybody padded anybody’s pockets, but I’ve asked about this and asked about this and why isn’t it in a fund and I’ve been told you could not. We had to put everything in General Fund. I’ve run a business for 40 years. I’ve never done crap like that.”
Beth Wood replied, “The Local Government Commission has urged towns (and) counties to use a central depository. So that’s what you’ve done. One bank account that everything comes out of. But there is a mechanism for making sure when you write that check, the cash leaves the bank (and) it goes against the account where the cash is sitting on paper… We need to go through there and figure out all those negative numbers.”
Wood said it appears restricted funds in the General Fund may have been spent on other legitimate expenses, including day-to-day operating costs. It will take more time for Wood and interim Town Manager Steven Harrell to figure out.
Revenue
The Town of Benson will soon receive a $22 million grant from the State of North Carolina for Wastewater Treatment Plant improvements. Benson has already spent $700,000 towards the project. Once the grant money is received, town officials hope they can be reimbursed $700,000 to put back into the General Fund.
Officials anticipate approximately $85,000 in revenue from a Sales & Use Tax payment and $295,000 in utility drafts in early-August. Those two revenue sources should help pay some of the outstanding bills.
No Financial Updates
Mr. Harrell, the interim manager, said the Town Board should have been receiving financial updates, at least once per quarter, on projects. Some project ordinances require those quarterly updates. Commissioner Chandler said the Board has not received any of those updates.
Wood added that the Board needs to be receiving financial reports each month, to compare the adopted budget to what is being spent. “If 50 percent of your year has gone by and you’ve spent 75 percent of the budgeted item, you’re in trouble. If you watch this every month, now you can start asking the right questions.”
Commissioner Chandler replied, “What if you ask the right questions and don’t get any answers? You need to make some changes.”
Harrell plans to review each individual project and grant to see when the Town can be reimbursed for expenditures already made. The interim manager said a good number of projects had engineering fees paid upfront and hopefully those funds can be reimbursed in the near future.
Harrell said the current fiscal year budget, adopted July 1, 2025 would likely have to be revised. He promised a more thorough report and recommendations for belt-tightening “corrective action’ at the August 12 regularly scheduled Town Council meeting.
Restricted Funds
Commissioner Chandler said money has been set aside each year, for approximately five years to go towards the purchase of a fire truck. Chandler said he was shown “on paper” the money was there two years ago but now “we don’t have it.”
The restricted fire truck money may have been spent on other expenses. The urgent financial review will help answer that question.
Chandler said he asked the prior administration how much money was in the bank and how much money the town owed. He said he was unable to get an answer.
Fund Balance
Commissioner Chandler said the former manager told him in 2023 there was approximately $2 million in reserve funds in the bank.
Chandler and other board members want to know how much, if any, funds remain in the reserve account.
Shortfall
Monday night, the Benson Town Council learned there isn’t enough revenue being generated in the Electric Fund to cover electric department expenses.
Commissioner Chandler said he recently learned a water meter cost the Town $300 but customers were only being billed $150. “We can’t do anything neutral. We’ve got to make a profit off everything…. Here’s meters we’ve lost our butt on.”
Officials learned Monday night, the Utility Department has zero cash.
Commissioner William Neighbors asked if the negative balance had anything to do with rates being too low. The Board learned current water, sewer, and electric rates can not support the system alone. And due to rapid residential development it is a compounding problem.
Mr. Harrell, the interim manager, said the property tax rate can not be changed after the start of the fiscal year on July 1, but he will recommend changes on August 12 to help begin the process of moving Benson out of its financial crisis.
Neighbors likened the pending recommendations to placing “…a bandage on the bleeding.”
One immediate step taken Monday night was a temporary hiring freezing. Vacant positions will not be filled until further notice.
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32 Comments
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Maybe they should allow businesses to come to Benson more easily instead of pleasing all of the old mom and pops around here. Benson has put limitations on their own revenue by not being open minded to allow restaurants, pubs, and different economic boosting businesses come to town.
I been saying this for years
Just the good old boys…
There are other “small” towns in this county that are probably in the same predicament just unaware or keeping the citizens in the dark..this much of a shortfall almost always points to some shady dealings
Prayerfully Benson will be more concerned about the residents than making theirselves happy & spending unnecessary taxpayers dollars!!
I totally agree with the writer of “FACTS”. Benson should have a variety of restaurants to choose from instead of 3 hamburger joints, 2 pizza, 3 Mexican,& bbq. A steakhouse or sandwiches would be wonderful but it has not been allowed. Everything in town closes down at 6pm, the town has run off its customers!!
I bet that new bar will generate a lot of income.
One or two police calls a months will put benson in the red for calls to the bar!!!!
It’s like this all over JoCo. Smithfield has destroyed It’s Downtown. Nothing to do but get arrested, find a bail bondmsmen, and get a lawyer
I am confused how does this just happen all of a sudden? The town board knows nothing about, it was a surprise??? Getting into trouble like this takes time. Somebody has some explaining to do.
Its true that the economic development could have been better and its also true that long time property owners in the downtown district wont sell their property to companies that want to come here. But the financial transparency has been lacking and deep questions regarding the finances from the board have been lacking. Maybe we haven’t had “numbers” people for quite some time because this problem has been brewing. The meetings reveal things and one could wonder how we are doing all the projects if the tax rate is revenue neutral. Very sad but hope the interim manager can offer solutions albeit they will be painful. PS its happening at the county and state level as well so watch what happens there,
My wife and I moved from Raleigh to get away from all the growth and noise!!! We were thinking this small town would be a good start, well guess not now. We should have just went with our first thought and bought in Clayton!!! No wonder we keep having power outages because the electric department can’t pay it own bills!! There is some money being stolen somewhere!!! The entire town needs to be at that Town hall meeting on August 12th!!! And demand answers from this town council!!! And they wonder why everybody goes to Smithfield and Garner and Dunn to spend there money!! Bunch of crooks!!!! And a bunch of good ole boys!!!!
Sell Benson’s electric grid to South River EMC, Tri-County EMC, or Duke Energy—plain and simple.
The Electric Fund can’t even pay its own way (council was told Monday night it’s running a deficit)!
Interim Manager Harrell is suggesting evaluating property tax increases after we’ve just had reassessments – this solution is not acceptable. It’s the easy solution for the Town, just tax their way out of it, but not the right solution. No one comes to bail us out when we have trouble, the Town needs to bail itself out by selling its electric grid, not shifting the burden to citizens with higher taxes.
South River EMC bought the Town of Garland’s electric grid in 2006 – 11 miles of electrical lines, purchase price was $1.5 million.
Garland customers saw their bills fall around 8-10%
In what world does it make sense for Benson to stick with owning it’s own money-losing electric grid that forces more tax and rate hikes?
Take a buyout check, plug the holes, and let folks enjoy the lower power bills their neighbors outside town limits (on Duke Energy) already enjoy.
OBVIOUSLY you’re speaking from an investors pov. You’re definitely not thinking about the citizens nor Benson’s long term plans
Benson needs to invest in the children and things for them to do that is positive as well, just a suggestion. I was looking to let my son do something creative here, would have cost me $300 for one week of positive interaction
Benson is broke!!
And you want them to spend money with no value ad!!!
Ii is up to you to raise your children not the government!!!
No wonder as a nation we are 37 trillion in debt!!!!
Agree
A quick look at their inflated salaries for a small town shows anyone with common sense where at least some of the problems lay. It’s Benson, NC, not Detroit, and there is no reason to be paying some of these ridiculous salaries.
OMG, i went and looked at these salaries as you suggested, these salaries are ridiculous.
Agreed! Why does such a small police department need to get paid so much more than other departments? Most of their officers are in the police station. I just saw they got a huge pay increase compared to last year. No wonder the town is broke.
The first question asked should be 1) How did a new budget get approved in July without knowing the financial status from last year? 2) Why did the city need an outside Auditor to come in and tell them the balance in their accounts, including the Reserve Account? 3) Who will be held accountable and when for the mismanagement of funds? Even IF none of them are personally guilty of taking the money, someone at the very least isn’t doing their basic job! Accounts (money in vs. money out) should be reconciled on an ongoing basis, monthly at the very least. COMMON SENSE!
someone is get ready to start pointing fingers. Complacency, and cover up until someone who cares got into office
This CANNOT fall back onto residents! In the last year, property assessment increases and utility costs have nearly put residents in the poor house yet the town in broke? Something isn’t adding up! Should more increases fall to residents because the town can’t manage their accounts efficiently then little town Benson will be nothing more than a ghost town.
Raise my utility rates and property tax rates to cover their own screw up?? They are a joke
Why should my property tax go up because they screwed up
Basic checkbook balancing skills could go a long way towards avoiding “discovering” that you’re broke. Sounds like they’ve been operating on the ponzi scheme accounting methods
Unbelievable
i did some investigating on my own thanks to the salaries being public reports across the county. For Benson to be a smaller town than the likes of Selma, the salaries in some positions are exceed by 8k-12k more than the salaries of the same position in Selma. Example Library Director/Supervisor in Benson makes annually 68K verses Selma 47K, or the library associate in Benson makes 42K verses Selma 33K..and Selma is producing more revenue..The numbers don’t lie. It’s always an inside job like the BOE in the county.
It is versus not verses.
So basically out of everything I wrote, that was the only thing you could comment on.. also, I did put vs, however, technology thinks it is smarter David. Thank you for wasting 1 minute of my life with your comment
If the electric department can’t even pay its own way, why is the Town trying to run their own grid? Handing the system over to Duke Energy Progress could put real money back in folks’ pockets—about 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, roughly $15 a month ($175 a year) for the average home. Imagine what the businesses would stand to save. Duke would write Benson a check for the poles and wires, pick up all the upkeep, and let the Town use that cash to plug the budget hole instead of jacking up taxes or fees. Folks just outside town limits already enjoy those lower Duke rates; seems only fair we look at the same deal and let Benson stick to services it can actually afford to manage (whatever those actually are).
Look to the Town of Coats for advice. They have been very careful in spending, have no debt, and their Commissioners and Mayor really watch spending to insure that every dollar is spent wisely. They are selective in how they grow. That little town has almost four million dollars in cash reserves.
Jack, this is great advice.
Is it any coincidence that Coats does not own their electric grid, but rather, Duke Energy provides electricity to Coats?
I’m going to keep beating this drum as loud as I can: Benson must sell their electric grid to South River EMC, Tri-County EMC, or Duke Energy.
Follow the lead of a neighboring town that has it figured out.
I’ll say it again: Benson’s Electric Fund can’t even pay its own way, and worse than that, it’s running a deficit.
What I’m proposing has been done before successfully: South River EMC bought the Town of Garland’s electric grid in 2006 – 11 miles of electrical lines, purchase price was $1.5 million.
Garland customers saw their bills fall around 8-10%
We should all expect the Town, Mayor, Commissioners, and Interim Town Manager to pursue this idea rather than take the easy way out and increase our taxes.
That approach is not acceptable.
Last weekend on my way back from the Outer Banks I saw a billboard (wonder who’s paying that bill) that basically says “Come visit Benson” and my mom and I were both chuckling about it. We wondered why travelers would want to go to Benson. What does Benson offer other than a few gas stations (of which one or two are kind of sketchy) and a couple of fast food places. I’m not a town resident but I live near by and I think it’s a shame that I rather drive to Clayton to shop and spend time than right down the road. Benson has been in a good ol’ boy slumber for decades. Well planned growth and development could make all the difference in revenue. Get some downtown revitalization grants. Renovating the business fronts and attracting new companies are essential to survival for small towns. And blaming residents that don’t want to sell their property is just a deflection from the real issues. The leadership of town of Benson has been complacent and lazy. They want to sit back and have a position so they can feel important, but real leaders get their hands dirty building a thriving successful community. Keep covering your eyes and ears Benson and soon enough you will be known as “that town that used to be off 95 that used to have that mule festival.”