The city of Kermit is lacking employees, funds and more.

KERMIT, Texas (KOSA) -The city of Kermit has gone through a lot in the past few months.

For example, they have a lack of dump trucks to pick up trash bins and a lack of funding toward certain departments continues to be an issue.

Some of these issues came up at last night’s city council meeting.

Back the Badge is the Kermit Police Departments version of Bustin’ for Badges, which is a fund raiser that helps Ector and Midland county raise money for law enforcement.

However, Back the Badge is a golf tournament that raffles off guns.

This was supposed to be the 8th annual event, but this year, the raffle was canceled by recommendation of the city attorney.

“The raffle had to be held by a 501( c ) 3 that their intended use is for first responders.” said Kermit Mayor, David Holbrook.

The Knights of Columbus stepped in and offered to donate guns for the raffle, but once the city found out about it, it was denied once again.

This left the Kermit Police Department confused as to why they weren’t able hold the raffle.

“They said to look for someone with a 501( c ) 3 which we do know the Knights of Columbus do have a 501( c ) 3. But because the police department initially bought the raffle tickets, they said that they had to cancel it,” said Yvonne Ramos, a Kermit resident.

Yvonne Ramos is the wife of the Kermit Chief of Police, Jaime Ramos.

She says this annual fundraiser would’ve brought in about $17,000.

“We were disappointed because that’s a big way for us to get money for the police department to get money for. There’s things that the city can’t afford to buy for the police department,” said Ramos.

Another item on the agenda was to make an agreement with the solid waste company, Republic Services.

Because of the lack of garbage trucks and drivers that can operate them, residents are forced to overflow bins. That leads to more trash on the streets.

“It’s a huge issue. It’s a public safety issue and it’s an issue that our citizens should not have to be going through.” said Mayor Holbrook. “We have mechanical issues on three of our trucks that I feel like are going to take longer than a reasonable amount of time to get them fixed. So, we’ll probably have an emergency meeting early next week and come up with our decision,”

If it comes to them having to use emergency funds to come to an agreement with Republic Services, it will come in a contract that could be six months to seven years.

Mayor Holbrook says if it comes to it, they will need to pull the trigger on those funds.

Now the mayor did mention that he plans to have this raffle in the fall. In the next coming meetings, he and the city council will find the money and date.

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