Friday morning, I submitted a public records request to the Burnet County Clerk's office for all documents filed by Stone Creek Estates HOA: covenants, bylaws, amendments, annual reports, and any assumed name certificates or business filings associated with the board or its officers. Texas law required the filings be available within 10 business days.
I pulled up the Texas Comptroller's business database on my laptop. The search took less than a minute.
Voss Property Solutions LLC, registered 18 months after Rhonda took the HOA presidency. Managing member: Gary Voss. Registered agent: Rhonda Voss. Registered address: 4712 Stone Creek Drive, the Voss home. Business type: property maintenance and landscaping services.
I cross-referenced the HOA's public filings. The most recent annual report filed with the county, as required by the Texas Property Code, listed a single vendor under grounds maintenance and property services: Voss Property Solutions LLC. Contract value: $156,000 per year.
$156,000 a year for landscaping and maintenance of a 94-home subdivision.
I had spent enough years investigating inflated contracts to know what that number meant. A comparable contract for a community that size in Burnet County would run $40,000 to $55,000. Gary was billing triple the market rate through a company his wife had authorized without competitive bidding.
I dug deeper.
The HOA's annual budget listed a line item labeled "Community Enhancement Fund," annual household assessment $250. Ninety-four homes times $250: $23,500 per year. The fund had no description in the CC&Rs, no description in the bylaws, no line item showing how the money was spent. It appeared in the budget and then vanished—the financial equivalent of a car turning onto a road that doesn't exist on the map.
I called my colleague at the Marshals office, Deputy Angela Reyes, who worked financial crimes and had a talent for finding money that people had worked hard to hide.
"Angela, I need you to run something for me. Not official, personal. A Burnet County HOA. I think the president is running a self-dealing scheme through a family LLC."