The Douglas County Board of Commissioners held a public hearing Tuesday on a proposed $75.2 million budget for 2015. Two concerned Douglas County citizens, Bill Smith and Roy Sparks, spoke at the public hearing to voice their opinions about what the county should focus on financially next year. Smith, who was recently named co-chair of the Douglas County Tea Party, spoke mainly about pay raises for employees of the Douglas County Sheriffs Office. (The) problem is the high rate of turnover in the sheriffs department, Smith said. That department lost 44 headcount last year alone. Smith brought a printed graph to illustrate the turnover rate at the sheriffs office for the last five years. He said that based on information from Sheriff Phil Miller, the departments sworn staff is between 8 and 13 percent below the average pay in several jurisdictions, including the 10 counties that are in the Atlanta Regional Commission. If we dont start paying our experienced officers better, we are simply paying to train them for other counties, Smith said. For example, Cobb County pays around 15 percent higher than Douglas County and they are looking to hire 232 officers. I understand Fulton County is hiring even more. Where do you think those officers are going to come from? I am asking you to revisit the budget and find ways within the current budget dollars to increase the salary and incentives for our sworn sheriff staff to ensure we attract and keep good personnel. Chief Deputy Stan Copeland spoke to the commissioners after the public hearing was closed on belhalf of the sheriffs office and urged the commissioners to give deputies raises in 2015. Commissioners have not made clear, so far, what raises sheriffs office and other county employees might get next year. At last months budget retreat in Peachtree City, District 2 Commissioner Kelly Robinson said raises based on the countys in-house salary study were discussed. Sparks, who was just honored for his dedication to citizen engagement by Common Cause Georgia, spoke to the commissioners and voiced his frustrations about last-minute changes to the budget that could be confusing to taxpayers. Just like last year, I was here when you voted on the budget and it is a change in progress all the way up until the day you voted on it, Sparks said. So in reality, it is a lot like the congressman from California stated: You are going to have to pass it so we can see what is in it. Douglas County Finance Director Jennifer Hallman gave a lengthy presentation on the 2015 proposed budget Tuesday. Hallman told the Sentinel after the hearing that one of her main focuses was to make sure the public understood the new funds created, referring to the funds the county is calling the Fire/EMS, Animal Control and Unincorporated Service District funds. I would like to explain how we are structuring our funds differently for 2015 compared to 2014, Hallman said. This has to do with service delivery strategy and making sure that we have tax equity. Where we used to have the general fund — we like to say that that is the general maintenance and operational fund for the whole county — for 2015 what we are going to do is we are still going to have the general fund but we are also going to have three additional funds. The structuring of the different funds largely explains why the 2015 budget is $13.5 million less than the $88.7 million budget adopted for 2014, Hallman said. To explain why the county broke up some of the funds, Commission Chairman Tom Worthan asked County Administrator Eric Linton to explain further. The service delivery is a function the county has to go through every 10 years with various cities, Linton said. For Douglas County, this involves Villa Rica, Austell and Douglasville. Some of the main services in those districts are fire services. We have county-wide fire service that provides fire protection to the city of Douglasville along with Animal Control and various other services, as well. Each one of those services has to have an agreement with the jurisdiction in the county. Linton explained that the county separated the funds to show that the services, not the funds, are shared with the municipalities. Linton further explained that shared services meant that they were county-run services that are contracted by the cities. Lintons comments seemed to be aimed at driving home the fact that the countys budget doesnt include fire and animal services for the city of Douglasville. The two sides are in the midsts of legal wrangling over service delivery, with a Jan. 1 deadline looming. Some citizens, including Sparks, felt that the budget information on Tuesday and the three-page overview on Douglas Countys website was not as clear as it could have been. The information was somewhat clouted, Sparks said after the public hearing. Thats the way it comes out. If you look at other counties budgets, youll get 30 or 40 pages explaining what it all means. Sparks described the public hearing as typical explaining that the commissioners let people speak and voice their frustrations but not much gets done. It would be nice if what we said made a difference, Sparks said. Smith said he felt a little bit more optimistic about the meeting. It is not looking too bad but there are some places to clean up, Smith said after the meeting. The raises right now are just across the board for the county employees but we are looking for something for sworn officers. The raise is good but its not going to keep the deputies here. When Hallman was asked after the meeting about raises for the sheriffs office, she was vague. The budget is a continuing work in progress, Hallman said. So revisions to the proposed budget are possible. The BOC is set to adopt the budget at its next legislative meeting, scheduled for Dec. 16 at 10 a.m. at the courthouse. A vote on whether to commit nearly $39 million in taxpayer-backed bonds for a proposed Westin Hotel at Foxhall in southern Douglas County is also expected to take place at the same meeting.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 01:26:32 +0000
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