Zavalla, Texas, sits in Angelina County in the eastern part of the state, where deferred maintenance, economic strain, and limited municipal capacity have shaped daily life for decades. The city’s water system has been failing for as long as most residents can remember. Aging infrastructure, deteriorating storage facilities, outdated water lines, and years of financial instability left the small East Texas community struggling to maintain basic services.

What Zavalla lacked until late 2025 was a clear financial picture, a completed audit, and a realistic path toward the state funding that could finally change that.

In October 2025, the Finance Team at Communities Unlimited (CU) arrived to work alongside city staff and find out.

Zavalla sat near the top of the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) list for approximately $5.5 million in Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) support. For a town of roughly 600 residents, it represented a once-in-a-generation infrastructure opportunity.

There was one major obstacle: the city needed completed audits to qualify.

CU had reached out months earlier with an offer to help stabilize the city’s finances and water system. Months passed without a response.

During that time, Zavalla’s leadership changed almost entirely. The city council, city secretary, city clerk, and water clerk were all replaced, leaving a new team trying to untangle what they had inherited. The previous administration had improperly combined restricted municipal funds, something cities are legally prohibited from doing. The city’s auditor declared the books unauditable. The last completed audit on file dated back to 2019. Years of financial records in between were missing, shredded, or never properly created.

When Mayor Pam Hooks and a newly elected council member sorted through a former city staff member’s office, they found CU’s letter.

CU Chief Financial Officer Kim Griffey and her staff arrived on Veterans Day. City offices were officially closed, but newly appointed City Secretary Viry Byerly gave up her holiday to meet with the team and begin rebuilding the city’s financial records from scratch.

The deadline was critical. Zavalla’s 2024 audit had to be completed by December 31, 2025, for the city to remain eligible for TWDB funding.

Over the next several weeks, CU reconstructed the city’s entire 2024 financial history. Every deposit, every check, every transaction had to be classified, reconciled, and documented.

“Between October the 10th and November the 15th, me and my staff, Joanna (Moore, Grants Coordinator), who’s amazing, we completely rebuilt all these financials,” Griffey said.

Before CU arrived, the city’s previous auditor had quoted approximately $95,000 to complete the audit because of the amount of reconstruction work required. After Griffey and her staff restored the city’s records, they negotiated that cost down to $35,000. The audit was completed on December 15, just over two weeks before the deadline.

The financial reconstruction was only part of what CU brought to Zavalla.

When Byerly stepped into her role in mid-2025, she had received no formal training, no transition from her predecessor, and little familiarity with the city’s financial software. Griffey worked side-by-side with her, not just restoring the books, but teaching her how to maintain them and why each step mattered.

“She just needed somebody to come alongside and say, ‘This is not only how you do it, but why you’re doing it this way,'” Griffey said.

“Kim was absolutely wonderful,” Byerly said. “She stepped in, she got right on it. She helped me reconcile.”

The shift is visible. Byerly now retrieves records with confidence. The city’s finances are current. The 2025 audit is already underway. For the first time in years, Zavalla’s staff has both the tools and the knowledge to keep the system on track.

“They’re just all trying their hardest to do what’s right by the city and try to make it a better place and to try to fix the water,” Griffey said.

The Work Continues

The financial work was never the end goal. It was the key that unlocked everything else.

In rural infrastructure work, financial capacity and water infrastructure are deeply connected. Without completed audits and compliant financial records, Zavalla could not move forward with the state funding needed to rebuild its water system.

The city has multiple enforcement actions through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) tied to its water system. Two existing ground storage tanks and one elevated storage tank are considered beyond repair. Some have deteriorated so severely they cannot safely be climbed or inspected. The system also fails to meet minimum water production and service pump capacity requirements. Across town, aging asbestos-cement water lines continue to deteriorate beneath the ground.

The proposed TWDB project would do far more than repair isolated issues. The funding would replace deteriorating water storage infrastructure, improve pumping and production capacity, and replace aging asbestos-cement water lines with modern PVC pipe.

For a community the size of Zavalla, the scale of the investment is difficult to overstate.

The city is currently ranked near the top of the TWDB Intended Use Plan list, increasing its chances of receiving funding. Approximately 70% of the project is expected to be forgiven through the DWSRF program.

Senior Economic Development Loan Officer Chris Ranniger worked alongside Zavalla to secure additional financing through CU’s Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) fund, helping the city refinance its municipal building while also covering the costs of the audits needed to move forward with TWDB funding. The T.L.L. Temple Foundation, CU’s partner in East Texas, guaranteed a portion of the loan to help stabilize the effort.

“Y’all put us in touch or even contacted the correct agencies in which to help us,” Mayor Pro Tem Sue Huff said.

Griffey also connected newly appointed Public Works Director Tyler Morrison with CU East Texas Coordinator Jessica Hester of the Community Infrastructure Team.

Like Byerly, Morrison stepped into major responsibility with limited preparation and aging infrastructure already in crisis.

Hester worked alongside Morrison to assess the city’s water infrastructure, complete water surveys and rate studies, prepare documentation for inspections, and help create long-term capital improvement forecasting tools for the system.

“This is an amazing group of people,” Hester said. “They are trying everything they can to get their little city up and running. It’s exciting to see them come together like that.”

Morrison sees the stakes clearly, not just for today’s residents, but for Zavalla’s future.

“People want and deserve a certain quality of water and it’s hard to give it to them with the infrastructure we’ve got, but that’s where we’re hoping Communities Unlimited can help us out,” Morrison said. “The citizens deserve this, and it’s something that would not only benefit the people here, but make us grow and prosper, and possibly bring more people here in the future.”

Senior Facilitator Kristy Bice, part of CU’s Community Sustainability Team, has now begun work in Zavalla as well. Early efforts include council training and researching additional grant opportunities for the community.

As Mayor Pro Tem Sue Huff reflected on CU’s combined work across departments, she put it plainly:

“Y’all lifted us up and have truly touched every asset of our city,” Huff said.

Added Griffey, “In the next couple of years, Zavalla is going to have a brand new water system. Everything will be new. It’s going to be a whole different town.”