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Tuesday, June 4, 2013 – 1:00 p.m.
Courthouse Annex, 79 Jackson Street, Zebulon, Georgia
1. CALL TO ORDER - Chairman Briar Johnson
2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE - Chairman Briar Johnson
3. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA - (O.C.G A. 50-14-1 (e) (1))
4. SECOND READING OF THE FY 2013-14 BUDGET
5. COMMISSIONERS COMMENTS
6. ADJOURNMENT
Agenda subject to revision.
ZEBULON - The meeting began at 1 p.m. with all 5 commissioners were present, County Clerk Jo Ann Wrye to take the minutes, Financial Officer Kay Landers, and County Attorneys/Interim County Managers (CM) Rob and Tom Morton. Motion to amend the agenda to be the First Reading instead of the Second Reading. 5-0.
CM Rob Morton gave an overview of the budget overall. This is a 2.3% increase from last year’s amended budget. $8,690,026 is the budget for the General Fund. Other funds such as E-911, Jail Construction Fund, Impact Fee Fund, Drug Abuse Treatment Education (DATE program), Juvenile Court Fund, Capital Project (SPLOST 2011), LMI Grant (state road paving funds), and the Law Library for Superior Court have at least some supporting funds from outside sources so that brings the final budget number to $9,724,360. For example, E-911 receives monthly funds of $1.50 per land line and cell phone in the county and those funds go toward E-911 only. The roughly half of this fund that is not paid for with those funds has to come out of the General Fund every year. The LMI Grant is a matching grant where the state has given us $315,299 and we have to match it with $140,461. The Jail Construction Fund, the Juvenile Court Fund, the DATE program, SPLOST and Law Library are 100% self-supported with their own bank accounts and specifically designated funds.
$100,000 has been removed from the budget since there is currently no pending litigation against the county. A savings of $10,000 was found when an employee signed up during Open Enrollment yesterday. Inmate Care was reduced to $55,000. The county is looking at doing an audit of our phone services to see if we can save some money. There is a just under $200,000 increase from last year with a significant amount of it that comes from changes in healthcare benefits though it was noted that the Working Spouse Rule has been implemented. The county is also attempting to get a contract proposal with Turner Tech for computer maintenance and support contract rather than hourly as it is now and if there is a possibility that they can be our web designer/web host.
Capital Assets Program (CAP) – Vehicles moved to this program, roof repairs for several of our facilities, the aerial overview for the Tax Assessor’s Office, computer equipment needs, and a variety of requests for capital assets that are needed from many departments have been placed into a separate fund that is a 5 year Capital Assets Program that will have an allocation of $50,000 per year. The needs for capital improvements in our county are more than $50,000 this year, but this is something that has been needed for a long period of time and this is a first step toward a capital improvements policy. The auditor made suggestions on how to set up this separate line item and the amounts would roll over from year to year.
Vending machine contracts are being examined as a service to employees rather than providing coffee and water, etc. Public Works will still have water because their water is not drinkable and they provide water to employees as they go out and work on the job. Water and coffee has been removed from the County Commission budget.
Animal Control has $15,000 allocated. This will take care of moving a building, 30 x 30 area for housing and fencing—basically the minimum needed for animal control for the county. This would cover the pickup and housing of dangerous animals and for euthanization if needed. Planning and Zoning Director David Allen and Public Works Director Todd Goolsby sat down to come up with this.
County employees have been doing more for less over the years, and CM Morton did not recommend taking any holidays away from employees. This was examined as a way to save costs for the county. There are currently 11 paid holidays and one commissioner pointed out that 9 is typical in many places of business. If 5 holidays were removed across the board, it would save the county about $83,000. It would only be about $20,000 if it was only the county offices and didn’t go across the board. And if we take away a holiday and didn’t furlough the employees, it would not be a savings. There was an emphasis on being fiscally responsible with tax dollars.
Raises are not included in this budget. It would $198,000 if a 2% raise is given across the board. Commissioners discussed this again. There haven’t been any raises in 5 years for county employees.
Commissioner comments:
Tommy Powers District 3 – His concern with the entire budget is the big hit that you are taking on the taxpayers. They have lost all of the way around. Businesses, payroll, etc. I have a hard time accepting any increase on the budget. Wants it to be back to last year’s numbers.
Tamra Jarrett - Thank you for your work on this.
Chairman – Thank you to everyone for a great job on the budget. Kudos to our county employees for their hard work.
Discussion that this budget is a work in progress. Commissioners can amend it at any time. Commissioner Carol Bass said that it’s a crying shame that we have this multimillion dollar budget and we don’t have a raise for our employees. Commissioner Tommy Powers agreed. CM Morton reiterated that the changes to the General Budget compared to last year are less than $200,000. Tried to give commissioners some real numbers so they could see what the actual costs are compared to last year.
Commissioner Carol Bass asked that Magistrate Court be discussed specifically because of the litigation that was just settled and asked if the amount given in that department would be adequate to ensure that the county not be sued. CM Rob Morton said that they are not giving the total amount requested for salaries in that department but walked through what was requested, the minimum legal requirements for salary and advised that the amounts being given are compliant with the court order as well as being fiscally responsible to the citizens of the county. There is a special meeting at 3 p.m. today to settle the final details on the Magistrate Court litigation that was recently appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia in which the county lost the case.
Motion for 1st reading of the budget for this fiscal year. 5-0. Commissioner Carol Bass said that this is a hard process and it has not been completed. Have a fiduciary responsibility to citizens of the county and sometimes requires hard decisions. If some departments don’t get what they want, they need to understand that the first loyalty is to the citizens of this county and that we could not function without our employees.
Motion to adjourn at 2:40 p.m.
Thank you to Kay Landers who does our finances in the county for filling my Open Records Requests for the budget and for explaining some of these numbers to me as well. This is NOT my favorite time of the year, but I am learning how all this stuff works! Click here to read the summary page for the budget. Click here to read the General Fund. Click here to read the Revenues. Click here to read the All Other Funds. Click here to read the Fire Department Budget. This 150 page document was split up into several sections so it could be sent to me electronically. Enjoy!