The Port of Benton is working to correct a roughly $1.14 million deficit in its 2026 budget after a financial review uncovered several discrepancies in budget documents approved last fall.  

It’s the latest development in a turbulent stretch for the Richland-based public agency that has included leadership upheaval, a fired finance director, an executive director on paid leave, and an ongoing recall effort against all three commissioners.  

Errors found in the 2026 budget include loan proceeds associated with the Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) that were overstated by $1.9 million; the 2025 budget carryover was overstated by $300,000; and property tax revenue was overstated by $680,346. Beginning cash was understated by $1.7 million.   

Stuart Dezember

The budget errors came to light after Stuart Dezember returned to the port on April 20 as director of finance, stepping into a role that had been vacated when the commission voted in February to fire Alicia Myers, who had been hired just three months earlier. Dezember previously served as director of finance for more than 15 years, from 2003 to 2020.  

“We take this issue very seriously and are moving quickly to correct it,” Dezember said in a statement.  

CERB loan 

Upon rejoining the port, Dezember launched a deep dive of the 2026 budget to familiarize himself with it, he told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business. The budget-making process typically kicks off in mid-summer, he said, so it will soon be time to start the 2027 budget. 

He began by going through the capital budget line by line and checking where each number came from. That’s where he flagged totals that didn’t add up. 

The nearly $1.9 million CERB loan for the port’s building at 2579 Stevens Drive wasn’t lost – in fact, the port hasn’t yet drawn on those funds. Instead, the loan was listed as incoming revenue and was not included in the port’s expenses. That means it wasn’t being spent on the project those funds are meant for, creating a false surplus in the budget.  

The project the CERB funds are being used for will total around $5.5 million and will be phased over a few years, Dezember said. “We still are moving it forward with that project. Right now, we’d be using port funds that are not tied to the CERB grant,” he said.  

The project will keep going, but reimbursements will be paused until next year.  

Property taxes 

The issue with the property taxes was a little more complicated. In November, when the port commissioners passed the budget, they approved a levy rate of $3.3 million, Dezember said, a 1% increase over the previous year.  

He said there’s always some variance, but Benton County told the port that they would only be getting $2.6 million.  

The difference came from a state Department of Revenue levy certification form that was filled out in addition to the required levy certification letter. Due to the structure of the state form, the wrong amount, $2.6 million, was used as the total instead of $3.3 million.  

The Benton County Assessor’s Office told the port that the state form supersedes the certification letter, so the port is lacking $680,000 in funding it was counting on.    

“The challenging part is to find out that the port was informed of this Jan. 13 … and the port didn’t discover that discrepancy until May,” Dezember said.  

According to port records, then-finance director Myers received a call from the county assessor’s office to discuss the levy certification. That date was days after executive director Diahann Howard was suspended with pay.  

Dezember said that with the advance warning, the port could have updated the projects it was doing.  

Solutions 

The underestimated beginning cash – the port had $1.7 million more than it thought – helped mitigate the negative discrepancies. “If we didn’t have that carryover, that would be a $2.7 million discrepancy” instead of $1.14 million, Dezember said. Variations in the carryover estimation is common, he said.   

That’s where the $300,000 comes into play as well. That’s the amount of carryover from 2025, which is actually included in the $1.7 million of beginning cash. Dezember said he could have left the $300,000 and written it as $1.4 million in beginning cash instead, but he wanted to show the total beginning cash balance. 

To help correct the deficits in the budget, the port will pause some of the capital projects that haven’t yet started or been engineered. Ongoing projects with contracts will continue, Dezember said. Grant-funded projects, like the White Bluffs Southern Connection Rail project, will see adjustments in the timing for payments.  

Revisions to the budget will go before port commissioners at a future public meeting.   

“The port’s focus is on ensuring accurate financial reporting and maintaining the public’s trust through transparency and responsible decision-making,” Dezember said in a statement. 

But pushing off projects until a later date will have a ripple effect, Dezember said. Other projects and expenditures are already planned for 2027, which means the port will have to look not just at 2027, but also the next five years. “You have to prioritize the next year and the year after, because there are limited resources for the port district,” he said.  

He hasn’t yet finished reviewing the income or operations expenditures, where he’d look at leases, operations, maintenance, salaries, benefits and more.  

2026 budget 

The 2026 budget was adopted Nov. 12, 2025, and presented as balanced at the time, with a net surplus of $185,746.  

The budget process included one-on-one meetings with commissioners in September 2025 and a special workshop meeting in October 2025 to go over the proposed budget, according to commission meetings from those months. The budget was released for public review in October before being passed in November.   

Jeff Lubeck was the port’s finance director at the time the budget was developed and passed. He retired at the end of 2025, according to a Nov. 12 commission meeting.   

A Dec. 15 press release on the 2026 budget quoted Lubeck as saying, “This balanced budget reflects our ongoing commitment to fiscal responsibility and delivering value to the taxpayers of our district.”