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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-26-2000 Budget Session BUDGET SESSION COMMISSION CHAMBERS October 26, 2000 PRESENT: Hons. Colclough, J. Brigham, Kuhlke, H. Brigham; Shepard, Beard, Cheek, Williams and Bridges, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. ABSENT: Hons. Bob Young, Mayor and Mays, Commissioner. Also Present: Randy Oliver, Administrator; Walter Hornsby, Deputy Administrator; Jim Wall, Attorney and Lena Bonner, Clerk of Commission. Mr. Oliver: You don’t want to put the budget out prior to an election and make it an election issue, so we’ve intentionally kept the budget back and not released it until after the November elections. Ideally, from a staff perspective, it would be far better if a budget could be approved in November, because it gives an opportunity for a plan to be put in place, employees that may be having changes made to them and things like that, for those types of things to happen. We are prepared -- Teresa has been out most of this week. She is prepared to complete the books that go with this document. However, I think there are some fundamental changes within this budget that we need to make sure you’re in agreement with before we actually print those books. So what I’d like to do is to go through the budget. There are, on the first page of the budget letter, as you see on the screen, there are six major changes from the 2000 budget to the 2001 budget. The first change -- as you recall, several years ago, the Sheriff’s Department obtained a grant for 68 deputies. That grant was designed in such a way that the first year 75% of their salaries was reimbursed, the second year 50%, and the third year 25%. What happens is, in reality, that certain, that the Sheriff, when you tell him to hire 68 deputies, he clearly can’t do that in a short period of time, and that took many months to do. As a result of that, any excess funds get lumped into the third year of the grant. Well, we have expended all of the funds, and as I said at that particular time, unless there is a willingness to decrease those number of 68 deputies and reduce that, we are still obligated to fund them. And so consequently, we have lost $1,468,000 in a Federal grant that we had in 2000 that we do not have in 2001, so that has to be made up. The Mayor and Commission, you elected to increase your cut as part of last year’s budget, several positions within the Tax Collector’s office and you subsequently restored those positions during the year, so consequently that again is something that has to be made up in the 2001 budget. You increased the staffing for Indigent Defense, which we pay about 80% of, to include an attorney and investigator and a secretary. You increased staffing and salaries for the Solicitor’s office during the year. Again, this has a budgetary impact in 2001. You added an operations manager and engineering technician in Public Works to facilitate neighborhood clean-up, and then there was a 4% general increase in salaries and wages, which the net annual impact is $2.3 million based on our general fund payroll, which includes the Sheriff’s Department and the Constitutional 2 officers. So with those six items going into the year, we were $4.2 million short, and those are the big adjustments. There were a number of little ones. I’m going to jump around in just a minute. As you are aware, the Governor and the Legislature passed Senate Bill 177, which requires that the tax rate be rolled back, or you have to go through a public hearing process. Previously, and we did that this year, it’s proposed to be done next year, we’re proposing no increase in the millage rate with this budget. However, as I’ll discuss in a minute, we are proposing to increase certain fees as part of the budgetary process. But Senate Bill 177 says that if you had one house in your county and it was assessed at $100,000 and it was reassessed for $103,000 that you have to reduce the tax rate 3% to be revenue neutral. In other words, a person, if there was only one house, would pay the same amount of dollars in taxes this year as they did next year. The problem with that from a budgetary standpoint is that assumes we do not give our people any increases, and that is a bad budgetary assumption. And I think it is bad legislation. But regardless, we either have to comply with that or go through the three public hearings and my feeling is because of the relative small amount of the roll back, unless you plan to increase taxes more than the roll back amount, I don’t think that it’s worth dealing with and publishing this fairly substantial notice of a proposed tax increase for the little bit of revenue that is going to generate. The one other thing I would note, however, is that the effect is cumulative. So whatever you lose in revenue this year, you will lose next year and all years into the future. So it creates a significant problem. The next thing I want to point out is that we have had conversations with Rural Metro. Currently ambulance service has been contracted through University Hospital. It was a five-year contract for approximately $600,000 a year for the first three years. I was not here when that contract was approved. I do not know what the discussion or the representations that were made at that time, but the contract provided that for the first three years it would be approximately $600,000 a year, and for the final two years it would go to zero, and we have not funded that at all up to this point, and that contract expires June 30. I felt that it was only prudent to at least approach Rural Metro and to talk about extending that contract or renegotiating that contract because they have given verbal representation that they desire some level of subsidiary to continue to provide that service. As a result of that, I asked them for a letter, which I previously distributed to you all, and in that letter they indicated that at a minimum they wanted $625,000 per year to provide the current level of ambulance service and then they provided several options for that at more money. I think, and any of you that were in the fire chief interviews, one of the things that we have clearly represented to them is that the new fire chief, one of the issues that they’re going to have to address immediately will be how ambulance service will be provided, whether that will be to either renegotiate the contract with Rural Metro, whether it will be to bid the service, and I’ve had three ambulance service providers who have contacted me about having an interest or expressed an interest in the service, and/or providing that service within the Fire Department or some kind of hybrid, and by hybrid I mean part of those services are provided in the Fire Department and part of those services are provided on a contractual basis. It is my opinion that the fire chief, and I’ve expressed this to all three of them, that they need to pursue all three paths concurrently and then make a 3 determination based upon which alternative provides the highest level of service at the lowest possible cost. It’s my belief, however, that I don’t think that the $600,000 is -- I think that some subsidy is going to be required, and as a result of that what is proposed in this budget, and that $625,000 is not funded, it would only be half of that for next year, by the way. That $625,000 is not funded, but it’s my opinion that the best way to deal with that would be to create a separate taxing or taxing districts to provide that service, and depending upon what that final number is, would result in that. I would note, though, that if the separate taxing district is created, that it probably needs to occur the first quarter of next year but clearly no later than the second quarter of next year, and I think there is ample time to do that, but clearly at the time of consolidation and when this contract was entered into, it was not anticipated that there would be a continuing or ongoing subsidy as it relates to ambulance service, but that $625,000 for next year, half of that is not currently provided for within this budget. The next thing I’d like to just briefly highlight is there has been a lot of discussion as it relates to the efficiency study and I will say this, I think an efficiency study or management study is an important tool. I think realistically, however, not everything that’s on there is going to be implemented for a number of reasons, and it’s my experience that if you implement about half of it, I think you’ve done very well. This is the current status of the implementation of that management study. We have realized savings over the past budget years, and that’s before any adjustments of this year, of $663,197. That’s 24% of potential that they felt was out there. The 24% doesn’t look that good, but when you compare it to the cost of the study was $150,000, I think that the return on investment was substantial in that these are reoccurring annual savings every year and we are proposing the implementation of further components of this within this budget and several things that we think that need to be thought about as policy decisions in the longer term. I would note that all funds are balanced, collected of revenues maximized, and we’ve adopted the roll back millage rate, and I would like to reiterate there are no transfers from the utilities funds to the general fund, and that was legally prohibited when you all entered into the 2000 bond documents. That prohibited those transfers from happening into those bonds are paid off, which will be 30 years or until they’re refunded. So that is not an issue, and I would suggest that as part of the Legislative agenda, if there is discussion of a water authority, that that be clearly communicated to the Legislative Delegation that says hey, legally we cannot do this any more. Our general fund undesignated reserves, as was previously mentioned, or our profit in a private sector business last year was $2.7 million. We budget in such a way that we present figures that we anticipate that the revenues will exactly equal the expenses with a contingency, and this year the contingency was roughly a million dollars. So if you had expenditure from a contingency, your budgeting was perfect, you would have a million dollars profit, if you will, left over. A million dollars sounds like a lot of money, but it’s only about three to four percent of our budget, but you want to see those numbers be on the positive side, and as a result of that we have increased our general fund contingency to $23.8 million, or 25.5% of 2001 projected expenses. This represents about 94 days of operating reserve. So what that means is if we were out of work for 94 days, we would not need any revenue to cover our expenses. 4 Clearly that is not going to happen and we have revenue from multiple sources, but when I came here that number was in the 60’s, low 70’s, and that number has now increased approximately 30 days and I think that that is a significant number. I think the people from Cherry Bekaert said that the number should be at least 60. I agree with that. However, the bigger the number, the better the number when you go to the bond market. Like anybody else, they always loan money to people that have money in the bank. Okay? And I think this reflects well on the strength, the financial strength of the government, and where you get into problems is where you start eating away at that fund balance to live on. It’s like having a savings account and you’re going to the savings account every month to supplement your ordinary expenses for food, rent, electricity and things like that. While that works for a short period of time, that will come to an end very quickly and once you start that, it is a downward spiral. As it relates to the revenue highlights, I previously discussed Senate Bill 177. We have budgeted about a 2% increase in property taxes and this is relating to new construction. New construction is exempt from Senate Bill 177, as it should be because when a new building goes up, be it a residential structure, be it a commercial structure, we have to provide services in the way of streets and fire, police protection, and things like that, so we have projected 2%. We are comfortable with that number. We believe it’s realistic and achievable. We have also eliminated the $25,000 funding for Augusta Clean and Beautiful as requested by the Mayor and several Commissioners, in favor of establishing a neighborhood deputies program and License & Inspection. This will be funded with a part-time coordinator. The purpose of this will be to take citizens, homeowners associations, neighborhood presidents, people in neighborhood associations, and to train them to write what I consider to be enforcement tickets and violations, and you’re going to have to pick the people very carefully who are going to do this, because clearly you don’t want somebody out there that is going to not be sensitive to situations and will represent, not represent the program and the community well. This was a program that was used in Florida. We had about 50 to 100 people who did it, but a little differently. It was primarily used for litter and things like that. But the delineation of what things they can and can’t write citations for is going to have to be developed by this coordinator, but I think this is something that will be positive. We’re also proposing, and it’s voluntary this year, Mr. Bridges, not mandatory -- a voluntary Animal Control registration fee. The purpose of this is to put electronic chips on pets. There are some benefits to that. What we’re trying to do with an incentive for this will be that if a pet gets lose, we will hold that pet for ten days if it has a chip in it. Because if it has a chip in it, we know who to return it to or who to call. Frequently we pick up an animal and they don’t know who it belongs to. If it does not have a chip, the minimum time required by State law is three days, so if it isn’t clearly adoptable we’ll deal with it. Obviously if it is unhealthy, we clearly don’t want to potentially contaminate the rest of our population. We’re proposing a general fund contingency of $907,055 which is pretty close to the million dollars that was something I know a number of Commissioners wanted to see us achieve last year and ultimately got us to. So we’re pretty close to that level. On the next page, I’ll get into the things that we have to do to make up that $4.1 million. The first thing that we are proposing, and these are the revenue 5 highlights. The first thing we’re proposing is to increase the business license fees by approximately the increase in the Consumer Price Index. These fees were last raised about 1995. The increase in the Consumer Price Index or the cost of doing business is about 12.4% since ’95. We are proposing to increase these fees 10%. We thing that that’s fair and equitable. As I say, they have not been adjusted since that time, so this represents something about 2% a year. It’s not, with the way those fees work, it’s not cost effective to do it in real small increments. We don’t think this is an unfair burden, but we would note that this needs to be done in November because those bills will be send out December 15 for -- the first payment date is January 1, and they have to pay them by January 31. So for it to be considered revenue in 2001, it requires that it be adopted in November. My understanding, and correct me, Jim, if I’m wrong, is that it takes one public hearing and two readings of the ordinance to achieve that. This is on the agenda, on the Committee agenda next time, to start that process. If it’s not done before those bills go out, it will not count in revenue and the impact of that is about $200,000 overall. So that will mean you will be looking for an additional $200,000 if that time frame is not met. We are also proposing to increase the alcohol taxes as indicated on page four of the budget letter transmittal, and we have shown you what the current amount is, what the proposed amount is, and frequently there is a comparison made to Atlanta, so we have taken the liberty of making that comparison to Atlanta for what those fees are. And we’re obviously significantly less than the same corresponding fees in Atlanta. Again, this needs to start occurring and really needs to be adopted in November. However, I think this takes, if my recollection is right -- does it take one reading or two? Mr. Wall: Two. Mr. Oliver: Two readings. But it does not require a public hearing. We’ve also proposed increasing the adult entertainment license fee. There are only five establishments, however, that have that. So we have that. Number three. We are proposing as part of this budget that we increase bus fares from 75 cents to a dollar. We have the lowest bus fares in the state of Georgia. They have not been increased since 1991, and we think that it needs to be -- you know, all revenue sources needs to be balanced and try to be equitable to everyone. This will generate approximately $150,000. This is adjusted for some minor changes in ridership which we’ll correct based on national studies. However, if this is not funded in this way, the net effect will be that you need to look for $150,000 in other areas to make up the shortfall of this revenue. In other words, I mean either cut expenses in another area or increase revenues in another area to make it work. Number four, which was previously approved as part of the bond document, is a water and sewer increase effective April 1 of 2001 in the amount of 11%. As I say, here I would encourage the Mayor and Commission to look at the implementation of a sewer development charge. What that is is if there is a new subdivision going in, we provide water and sewer service to it. We believe -- I believe that they ought to pay the cost of providing those services to them because they don’t have to put in wells and septics. I believe by looking at a system development charge that this rate could be decreased 3% or 4% by being able 6 to do that, and in that way, growth would pay for growth. I also believe that a user study needs to be done, and Mr. Hicks has been advised of that. One of the things that we have is that the water rate, for example, sewer rate, for example, that are paid by business and industry regardless of consumption is the same, and I think we need to look at how that rate structure works and look at several rate alternatives now that we’re doing that. But this was something legally committed to as part of the bond documents. Number five, we propose to adjust our landfill rates slightly. We’re proposing to leave the $32.50 alone for municipal solid wastes. This is exactly the same as Columbia County. They may raise theirs in July, but they have not completed their budgetary process yet. And we are proposing to raise the rate for non-profits a dollar, and we are principally the biggest non-profit in that Public Works takes a lot of things that they have out there and for horticultural and construction [inaudible] a dollar. This will make us more competitive, and it’s still well under what Columbia County charges for those two services. We’re also proposing to raise the cable franchise fee for cable from 3% to 5%, which is permitted within the ordinance. That will generate about $333,000. Again, that needs to occur in November. There are a lot of things that the timing is critical is on, because if it doesn’t occur then, then it will delay the start of that implementation. This is a little clean-up item, and I know this was discussed before, but it’s to increase the cemetery fees. As you look down these cemetery fees, and we have the back-up on this, the fees that we charge, even what we are proposing are substantially less than any of the private entities that provide these services. But again, it’s an effort to try to be fair and equitable. We believe if we’re going to provide the service that we should be competitive with the private sector, and right now what is truly happening is that we are subsidizing these fees in a round-about way with property tax dollars to make this happen. On the expense side, we have budgeted a 5% pay increase effective October 1, 2001. A number of Commissioners have requested that another classification and compensation study be completed. Personally I think there are some positions that need to be looked at, but I don’t think that the classification and compensation study is going to be really the answer or the issue, and I think that that may be money that would be expended that could be done differently or could be spent better. And I talked with Brenda on that, and she will be coming back and making a proposal to you. Classification and compensation study only does this: it says what is the least that a job is worth and what is the most that a job is worth. So if you have an electrician, for example, it tells you what the least that an electrician should be paid and what the most an electrician should be paid, even if that electrician is Albert Einstein. And as a result of that, it does not tell you where anyone should be within the range, and I don’t think that the ranges in and of themselves -- I think there are a couple that are off -- but I don’t think the ranges in and of themselves are off at all. As the Commissioners that were here at the time of consolidation are well aware, the city pay scales clearly lagged the county pay scales and there were a number of alternatives that were discussed as to how to try to correct those inequities, and it truly boiled down to funding, because one of the alternatives was $6.5 million, which clearly was not available, because of all the money that was being siphoned out of utilities and the need to get rid of that. But we have budgeted a 5% or about $2.5 7 million for pay increases, and the method of the distribution of these funds can be determined, as it was this year, at a later date. I would suggest that that be determined in about June, but I think it needs to be set up for a plan as to how you want to deal with those and that would be principally three categories: cost of living, as we did this year; merit, as we did this year; and then potential salary adjustments. But it would all need to come out of this pot, however you wanted to do it. We’ve proposed a 6% increase in the HMO rates, which is contractually provided for in our contract with the carrier. That is a fully-insured plan, for your information. The penetration rate or the number of participants overall that are in the HMO is in the high 80’s here, and that is a very significant penetration rate. And it’s something -- but it’s fully insured, which means we don’t have any risk for claims. The PPO, on the other hand, when these two plans were originally put in, there was a decision made that I don’t think was necessarily the best decision that the premium on both plans would be the same. Well, the problem is the costs are clearly not. So the last couple of years, we’ve been spreading the rates because -- it’s 10% on the PPO on the increase. There is a lot of adverse selection on the PPO plan in that all the retirees are in the PPO plan and the PPO plan versus the HMO provides greater flexibility as it relates to the selection of physicians and things like that. We have continued Daniel Field to be budgeted with $50,000 of a subsidy from Bush Field. Ultimately, I think it would be ideal if Aviation could be considered at least as a total overall entity, but with this amount of money it will permit Daniel Field to continue to operate. We have budgeted $1 million for indigent care. Currently, this year, we budgeted a $1,250,000. I know that there is a subcommittee that’s currently looking at this as it relates to spreading the burden for indigent care around. This is something again that I would encourage the Commission to work with the Delegation, the Governor and the State Legislature to address the issue. It’s an issue that the federal government has been fighting for years, and what they’ve done in large part is push it down to the states and the states, in large part, pushed it down to the counties. Some of the problems that have been occurring there are the number of indigents that are coming from out of state, and while we do not directly pay for that, if they paid some of that bill, it would lessen the burden on the surrounding hospitals. The fact is that anybody within 50 miles of here that has anything significant comes to Augusta because we are clearly, we clearly excel in the medical aspect of this. I would also note that University Hospital pays no property taxes versus somebody like Doctors Hospital, and just a rough calculation, what those property taxes would be in they paid them would be about $1.6 million. The budget provides for a 3% increase in funding for the library, which is about $51,833. They asked for about a 6% to 8% increase, but what we tried to do was to adjust them, as other outside agencies. We tended to try to adjust them for inflation to buffer that, and they’d indicated they wanted more. Mosquito control program was increased slightly. Item #7 is a carryover from last year and I would encourage the State Court to deal with that one position that they have in Municipal Court because I’d like to see those functions totally privatized and phased out because there are no traffic fines or anything coming into Municipal Court. There is some old stuff that is there and there needs to be some way to turn that over, and I’d suggest a group of Commissioners look at how to do that, turn that over, perhaps even to Elaine 8 Johnson’s office or something of this nature. But it just seems to me to be an internal control issue to have one person collecting tickets over there for an old Municipal Court that’s not truly functioned in several years, and there are some things that are outstanding, but the amount of collections at this point is minimal, and the likelihood for continuing those collections, getting those collections is great. There were a number of Constitutionals that have requested increase in compensation for their employees. Let me tell you, there are only a couple of them that we consider. We felt that would be better dealt with as part of an overall plan, whatever that may be. The Human Resources director brings back for adjusting salaries, which it appears that’s the direction the Commission wants to go. One of the issues, however, we think that probably needs to be addressed is Sid Mullis, the director of Extension Services, was promoted into Clyde Lester’s position. He, however, did not get Clyde Lester’s supplement to his state salary. We are recommending that his salary be increased $3,000 which would roughly be equal or make it comparable somewhat to Mr. Lester based upon his time and grade of service, because clearly Mr. Lester had more service and broader-based experience because of the amount of time he’d spent in his career. We’ve also proposed a 2% increase. These three fall through the crack every year. Riverwalk, Equal Opportunity, and Supervisor of Elections, because of their quasi-status. Number 9, we have proposed $11,000 for Augusta Tomorrow, which is approximately two memberships. They had previously indicated that they didn’t want any money from this government but they subsequently put in a budget request for $11,000 and we think due to the fact that it is an integral partnership and we do think that they do good work and provide some insight as it relates to the downtown, we think it would be consistent for the $11,000 for roughly the two memberships. We’ve divided the promotion account this year into two categories. Mayor’s Discretionary Account of $10,000 -- I would note that the Mayor requested an increase of $15,000 in his travel account and $7,000 in his membership account, which due to budgetary constraints we weren’t able to do that. However, we are proposing $10,000 be put into a promotional or to a discretionary account for him, that he can use to promote the city of Augusta and he can decide as it relates to travel, memberships, entertaining potential corporate clients and things of that nature. And to make the promotional account $30,000. Previously it was a little above $40,000. But that just splits the account up in that manner. This was an issue that was discussed last year, the need for a contract administrator. We are again proposing that there be a contract administrator and that a purchasing tech position be deleted and we create a contract manager position. The cost of this is about $15,000. We see this as the central coordinating force for contracts, and the purpose of this is not to intervene in contracts, not to perform the legal part, not to perform the business part, but to ensure consistency in the contracting function, make sure the terms are consistent, work with departments as it relates to RFP’s and terms and I think still one of the biggest things that needs to be done, and it’s being worked on and I think they’re pretty close in at least one area, is to do some standardization of contracts, and it’s going to take about 4 to 6 different types of contracts but standardize construction. Public Works uses Georgia D.O.T. which I think is good. Utilities uses a little something different, and I think there are ways to incorporate that, but even more 9 importantly, I think is to come up with contract forms which are being worked on for what I call large scale professional service contracts, as well as small scale professional service contracts. Let’s see, number 12 deals with HND. Again, we think that this function should be brought back in. I know that Cherry Bekaert is looking at making some suggestions as it relates to organization and I’d suggested that this be considered by them, as far as that overall plan. Number 13, and it really relates to the relatively-small size of the office and the fact that we believe that there is more than one person that needs to be involved in that. The Augusta Richmond County Museum, as you’re aware, a couple of years you approved an additional 1% on the hotel-motel tax, and as that is paid back, $50,000 a year, there is an agenda item going forward for you all to consider that would provide funding for the Augusta Richmond County Museum, as well as potentially the Lucy Craft Laney Museum. That is not a budgetary issue to us because whatever you delete out of the 1% additional taxes that come through, if you take $300,000 or $400,000 out of that, all that will occur is there will be less available to other entities to promote it. It does not have a direct budgetary impact on the county’s general fund. As we go down to number 14, the coroner’s requested an additional staff person. We were unable to be able to make that work for a couple of reasons, and we think that there are other ways that that can be done. Additionally, the management study did not support that increase based on the volume that they had. Number 15, and this needs to start fairly quickly, the revenues from the marina were $90,650 and expenses were $133,490 exclusive of debt service. Just a bad business arrangement. And so consequently they are losing about $40,000 on an annual basis, and we think that there can be some savings in the neighborhood of about $100,000 by privatizing that operation down there, contracting out the store operations, and essentially just renting it, because as I say we’ve got a direct loss of about $40,000. I saw on the agenda that the marina people were coming in and asking to make a position down there full time, which is only going to exacerbate the situation. But I think we should pay the debt service and that we should issue an RPF and we have provided that in here as a budgetary savings to issue an RPF and privatize that. Number 16 is a very significant policy decision, and I’m going to reiterate this one a couple of times. Previously we budgeted all positions at full for the whole year, which meant that we would have lapsed salary money. As a practical matter, our positions are about 95% filled the whole year. We are proposing to budget at 97% full, which we are comfortable that we will have at least that amount of savings. What that happens, though, is our profit coming forward will be substantially less than in 2002 by doing that. It’s an accepted budgeting technique and a lot of places use it, but what I’m saying is that it’s a one-time gain, and what will happen is, as I will expand upon late, what will happen is that the balance coming forward will be less next. It will be positive but it will be less. And as a result of that, there will not be as much money that will be available for capital or for contingency coming out of that and which will result in additional revenues being needed in 2002. Number 17, we transferred the subsidiary for health insurance, approximately $700,000 for the 1949 retirees to the 1949 retirement plan. And we think this is fair because all the other plans treat it this way. I know this was an issue that was discussed last budgetary period, but again, to reiterate, if the decision is 10 made not to do that, what will need to happen is you will either need to come up with revenues in another area equal to $700,000 or you will need to cut expenses in other areas in the amount of $700,000, and we think that is going to be a very difficult task. We have increased the proposed compensation for the new administrator based on my conversation with several of you to $125,000. We have budgeted that in there at that level. Number 19, we have budgeted legal services at historic levels, adjusted for inflation. While these figures are higher than those proposed by the legal consultant that presented their report a week or so ago, for the in-house legal department, they’re about $68,000 or $80,000 higher. We believe this level of funding, based upon what we understand is going to occur, will prove to be inadequate to meet the legal needs of the county for several reasons. We believe the numbers are low, but that is not my area of expertise, for one. But the second thing is we believe that there will be some considerable expenses in the transition to do that. So in my opinion, these figures are several, several hundred thousand dollars low. We have proposed eliminating the same positions in the Tax Commissioner’s office this year that we proposed last year. And we again think that makes good business sense and it’s based upon the recommendations in the management study. We’ve also made certain changes in the Sheriff’s Department, or proposed certain changes in the Sheriff’s Department. We would not, however, that this does not affect the number of deputies on the street. There is one thing that is not in there that I want to correct, and I meant to include in there because it was in my computations. We are proposing to make the deputies responsible for follow-up on all unassigned cases, eliminate all but one of the investigators assigned to night duty -- that eliminates six detectives -- eliminate two records clerks, and we are recommending the elimination of one of the management positions responsible for administration of the jail. We think -- and I think all of you know what position I’m speaking of. But we think that that’s prudent and I need to revise this just a little bit for that particular position. It is a senior level position, but we believe the way the organization works that it’s very redundant. We understand that the Judicial Qualifications Committee has recommended an additional Superior Court Judge for this Circuit. That will require the approval of the Legislature. We do not know whether that, whether it’s going to get that approval. We anticipate that it probably will. We are required to provide a salary supplement, assuming they do. Administrative support, secretary, office space and supplies. We anticipate that those costs on an annual basis at least the first year to be about $100,000. We would expect that if it’s approved that the earliest that it would be filled would be July 1, 2001, but more likely it will be January 1 of 2002. However, we have not budgeted funds for this position at this time because of the uncertainty. We recommend that the operations manager and the engineering tech in Public Works responsible for neighborhood cleanup become certified corrections officers so we can delete a road supervisor at RCCI. This will permit the Public Works Department to hire two additional truck drivers, which we think are needed to support this effort. And then we are recommending that the transfer of the planning and development manager compensation -- currently he’s paid out of the General Fund, from the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax -- from the General Fund to the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax account. This is a function that we do this consistently in 11 Public Works and while we would prefer perhaps to keep them in the General Fund, this is clearly an eligible expense because they’re doing the planning and construction for the new park. I know Mr. Beck would like to keep this in the General Fund but we again are trying to balance some numbers in that regard. As in past years, the biggest increases have been in the Parks & Rec Department, primarily with the opening of the new facilities. That continues to be true and we are proposing to make some changes in that area. In the next section, we’re making some recommendations as it relates to management change and organizational change and some of these have been discussed. We propose that the responsibility for records retention be transferred from facilities management within Public Works to Information Technology. Records retention has been become more than a physical clerical function in these days, more of an automated function, and we believe that it would be better served within the Information Technology side. We also recommend that you consider creating a growth management department which tends to be the current trend, that would incorporate Housing & Neighborhood Development, License & Inspection, and the Planning Commission, and to provide “one stop shopping.” We think it would be beneficial now. We think it will be even more beneficial at the point when consolidation of these areas into a single building would occur, and that will not happen until this building is revitalized. I talked about -- I’ve talked about the privatization of the marina. And the fourth thing really doesn’t affect us, but I think the Mayor and Commission need to encourage or require as was discussed as part of the audit responses. The Constitutional officers and other agencies to use Augusta Richmond County’s accounting system, specifically the bi-tech computer system, it was discussed in that meeting each Constitutional officer keeps their books and records in the best manner that they see fit, and then at the end of the year those records are consolidated into the county financial record, and I really think with a little discussion with them, that I think that their agency, as well as the county and the auditor, could all be better served by having those records in the same place. And I think that’s something that should strongly be encouraged as part of this. As you go down under new authorized positions, we talk about -- the first thing we talk about is [inaudible]. Animal Control is having a significant amount of time in overtime, and we are proposing to hire an additional Animal Control officer, essentially to cut down on that overtime. And we believe that that would be cost effective to be able to do that and to do some staggering of hours to achieve that. Right now, if there is a report of a stray animal and that type thing, we have officers on call. We are proposing to stagger some hours to do some things in that vein that will permit us to be able to better handle those situations, and we believe that that would be very cost effective. Page 8, 9 and until you get to the bottom 10, we discussed for the benefit of the Commissioners who are not -- to refresh your memory -- here were some issues relating to the management study. Page 10 just recommends some other things that were considered as part of the management study that you may want to look at. These have not been incorporated into the budget, but the potential is out there should you want or should you so desire. The final couple of things that I would like to highlight on this is that again, we would note that the budgeting of positions, that 97% during the year, while well accepted budget technique, will result in a reduction in 12 fund balance forward. The difference between revenues or expenses or profits from the 2001 budget. This will not impact you till 2002. Historically this fund balance forward has been used to fund capital and contingency. This year, for example, we had roughly -- we budget $1,750,000 in fund balance forward or the difference between revenues and expenses. We’re using a million dollars of it roughly -- I’m sorry, we’re using $750,000 roughly for capital and we’re using a little less than a million dollars for general fund contingency. The net impact of this will be the fund balance forward is going to drop to probably something under a million dollars. So what I’m saying is that money will not be there next year to fund capital or to fund contingency. And the shortfall will need to be made up in the 2002 budget. The net effect will be that a property tax increase will either be required in 2002 unless efficiency is further enhanced, levels of service altered, or other revenues increased. And I think it’s still doable to increase efficiency and levels of service to some extent. Whether it can be done totally is something that will have be to be dealt with in the 2002 budget. I would note that one of the things that needs to be carefully considered is from page 10, item 4, and this is a major policy change. Right now, we have the physical presence of Parks & Rec people at all our recreational fields. It’s not a volunteer thing. Okay, a lot of jurisdictions that volunteer on everything. If we cut that and this number should be about 10% higher than that because this was from two years ago, if we cut that we could save about a quarter of a million dollars in operating expense by making it so that those fields, you know, were maintained by -- not maintained, but managed in the evening or outside of hours while those programs were going on by the Little League or whatever was responsible for it. That would result in a quarter million dollar savings. However, if you’re going to make that as a policy decision, the decision needs to be made in the next month or two because it will take about a year to implement. It’s not something you can do overnight. But that is something that could clearly provide you a potential savings. The rest of this is just a schedule as it relates to the different areas that have gone, revenues and expenses that have gone up and down. It compares the 2002 budget against the 2001 budget. And I think, you know, I’ve looked at the areas that I thought the amounts went up or down more or less than I thought that they should and I’ve justified, at least in my mind, why I think that. I would note that the Parks & Recreation budget went up 4.28%, or $411,000. Okay, their budget for Parks & Recs is over $10 million. Based on the level of service that we’re providing, which is a high one and it’s probably one of the highest ones in the country, I mean I understand that, but it’s because of the new facilities and things like that that are brought on line. But that represents a significant portion of this government’s budget. The other thing primarily that I’d like to mention is if you compare our millage to the other counties thth in the state, we rank between 140 and 150 in millage of 159 counties in the state. Just as a point of comparison and when the final document is put together we get input as it relates to the things that you want to do, we will provide those final numbers. But our millage rate is very attractive when compared to that. I would note th that based on last year’s numbers, the school board millage was the 10 highest in the th state. The overall composite was about 64 in the state, and our was, again depending thth upon how you deal with one number, at worst case 140 and at best case 150 in the 13 state. So we have a very competitive millage rate, particularly for the sevices that we offer. I would also add that our millage rate is one mill below Columbia County, which does not provide indigent care and which does not provide mass transit type services. They have a rural transportation program but [inaudible]. With that, I will be glad to work with you if you want. In the future, a Saturday or something if you would like some assistance in trying to help to work this out, I would be glad to do that. I think that’s only fair and right to do that, to try to work through the budget process because I think this is a complex budget. I think it is one that is very carefully put together and it tries to be fair in a number of different areas, but the net effect is if you change one area, which that is your decision to make, there need to be changes made in other areas, either to make up the loss in revenue or to gain in expense, and to understand those intricacies, and I would be glad to provide that assistance. With that, I would like to open it up to you for any questions that you may have as it relates to the budget. Mr. Kuhlke: Randy, I’d like to ask on the ambulance service, when we know this is something that is coming, potentially coming up, are we not being a little bit short-sighted in trying to incorporate something in the budget on that? Mr. Oliver: Your choice would be, and I think you’ve got two things that are going on that are going to have be worked out. You could take of the $625,000, which would be $312,050, and you could either reduce the General Fund Contingency immediately which would bring it down to about $600,000. You could try to look for $300,000 in additional cuts. I think that that’s number that is going to change as we go into the future. The other issue that I think is going to have to be dealt with, as the Commissioners may recall, there was an option in there to provide a higher or different level of service to the southern part of the county, and they want an additional $260,000 to do that. So it could be done. If you wanted to increase the millage rate, it could be done that way. It could be done as a special taxing district. I think it’s a little more understandable as a special taxing district; however, there are some logistics issues with it. But I think clearly some level of money is going to be needed. And I think right, [inaudible], and that’s why we suggested a separate taxing district. Mr. Kuhlke: Did you take into consideration, as you go through the budget I know you mentioned the Administrator, but what about another position under the Administrator? Mr. Oliver: Currently the only thing that is funded in the Administrator’s office is the Administrator, a Deputy Administrator, and essentially support people that are currently there. This was a difficult budget to put together. Mr. Shepard: Randy, the last page of all the documentation shows the General Fund Budget 2000 at $85.7 million and the new 2001 at $88.6 million; overall you’re 14 up 2.4%. Is that bottom line of bottom line? The very last page. General Fund Budget. Mr. Oliver: Yeah, we’re up 2.4% at that point. That’s correct. And I think that’s very modest. Mr. Shepard: And that’s -- after all the juggling is considered, that’s the bottom line? Mr. Oliver: That’s correct. We’re up $2,055,000 and remember we started out $4.2 million in the hole. But due to increases in revenue our current expenses are up about $2 million. Mr. Shepard: Randy, what kind of capital are you talking about utilizing the fund balance carry forward, using capital. Is that spread in here in places? Mr. Oliver: No, it’s set out in a line item. We fund capital two ways. There’s a capital millage assessed which does not begin to cover our capital needs. If you look at the bottom of the last page, you’ll see under total debt service and drop on down you’ll see operating transfer out for capital $1,070,300. Mr. Shepard: Yes. Mr. Oliver: That’s the amount of money we’re transferring to capital in addition to the capital millage that we assess. Mr. Shepard: That comes out of the Fund Balance for the previous year? Mr. Oliver: Yes, that’s how we funded it. That’s correct. Mr. Shepard: But I mean, what are the proposed uses, or is that later for us to determine proposed uses? Mr. Oliver: There will be recommendations. The principal is used in two areas. One is for fleet and the other one is for information technology, and you have some minor amount that’s used for furniture, fixture and equipment. But those are your principal uses for it and that will determined at a later date, yes. Mr. Siddall has done recommendations and Mr. Rushton has done recommendations. Mr. Shepard: I understand that, but if you reduce those capital purchases you could restore a fund balance to some extent if you wanted to. Mr. Oliver: You could but I strongly recommend against it. What in essence you do by doing that is if Mr. Siddall has a 1985 Ford on the road and you reduce that fund balance -- and let me be absurd for a minute. If you reduce that fund balance, 15 you could theoretically buy little or no capital, but all that does is delay his replacing that vehicle and what results is that your maintenance costs wind up increasing, and I think it’s a double-edge sword because your maintenance costs increase, you’re more susceptible to breakdown which creates inefficiency, and in addition to that, you are one you farther behind on your equipment replacement program, and one of things that I am proud of after being here, we were in a major deficit as it relates to equipment and vehicles, and I think we’ve started to pull out of that. We aren’t exactly where I’d like to be, but I think we’ve pulled out of that, and what we need to try to do, without going overboard, is to have the best possible equipment to do the job because if we can keep, you know, have something that is as efficient as possible and our people are as efficient as possible and it doesn’t break down, we can cut more grass, we can have more patrol people on the street and that type thing. I would note that the Sheriff’s fleet is in very good shape, and that’s probably the best [inaudible], but we have had a lot of vehicles and equipment that has been in pretty sorry shape, and I would encourage that the capital outlay fund be left alone, because even with the amount of money we’ve got in there, the requests are going to far exceed what the funds are. Mr. Kuhlke: Mr. Oliver, following up on what Steve is saying, if you cut that out, would not that equate to the same thing the old city did with the water and sewer? Mr. Oliver: Exactly. Mr. Beard: I notice you mentioned that the study -- going back to the study that you can possible merge the Fire Department with the EMA? Mr. Oliver: Correct. Mr. Beard: Would that call for additional -- does it call for additional personnel if we’re going to do this? If you come up with the merger. Mr. Oliver: Well, I’m going to tell you what I personally think long term, forgetting personalities and legal impediments to this. As I understand it, currently the State law provides that the EMA [inaudible]. In my opinion and in an ideal world, and this was batted around as part of this management study and it didn’t work at that time for several reasons. I think that the EMA director, whoever it is, and I’m not going to get into any personalities or who it should be cause I don’t think that’s constructive, but the EMA director should be responsible for the 911 Center because I think that those two things are very compatible because the 911 Center, as Mr. Cheek knows, operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the EMA director has to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They always have to be in constant communication. So I think in the long run that that may be something -- it’s not something that can happen quickly but it may be something that somebody may want to have an eye toward longer term. 16 Mr. Beard: The other thing is dealing with -- I notice an increase in the license fees for alcohol beverages. Mr. Oliver: Correct. Mr. Beard: I guess my thought is that increasing this at time, most of those people, at this point have already kind of budgeted for this for this year because the license is coming up, as you said, I believe next month? They’re becoming available next month. Any consideration given there that you’re putting this on these people when they -- Mr. Oliver: No, sir, but I would say this if, if you don’t do that, you’re going to start out in the hole. The overall impact of that is about $700,000-some so you’re going to have to come up with $700,000 from some other source. While I understand what you’re saying, I don’t think that the increases that are proposed are that significant, and as I showed in the budgetary document, Atlanta, the fees that are charged in Atlanta are considerably higher. Mr. Wall: [inaudible] Mr. Oliver: Oh, that’s true. I take that back. This wouldn’t go into effect for them until the end of next year. On the business licenses, they go up 10% but I believe Mr. Wall is right, I think on the liquor licenses, they wouldn’t pay those until next year so they almost have a year. Mr. Speaker: I believe that is correct. Mr. Cheek: Randy, did we on the Animal Control registration fee -- it’s a good idea but did we budget anything for advertising these changes to the public? Mr. Oliver: No. We did not. And as I say, it’s a voluntary -- it’s a voluntary thing and out thing was to try to make it voluntary as a protection mechanism for your pets. Mr. Cheek: Another question I had is transferring the Records Retention to IT. Are we still be required by law to keep so many hard copies for so many years of documents? Has that amount decreased? Mr. Oliver: Mr. Wall, I think, could better answer that question but I think the answer is largely yes. Mr. Wall: Correct. They are moving toward digitizing records and things of that nature. You get into different categories. That’s not a simple answer but a lot of [inaudible] maintain the archives. 17 Mr. Oliver: And there are some legal issues that are going to have to be wrestled with from things I’ve been reading as it relates to whether -- right now, as I understand it, and I don’t want to get into too much detail, I think CD’s, you can preserve things. I think that’s the limit. I don’t agree with that, by the way, but I that I think is the limit. Mr. Colclough: Randy, what is the purpose of having the operation manager and engineering tech on that clean-up detail certified as corrections officers? Mr. Oliver: Because by doing that, a corrections officer can be eliminated in RCCI which would permit the Public Works director to fund that with one other little change, help them fund the two -- they asked for four dump truck drivers, and we were only able to give them two and the way to give them two was this and we believe that that’s a redundant position and it would be more efficient for those people to be able to provide direct supervision and direct order to those clean-up crews. Mr. Colclough: You have a program here that’s been working very well under its present structure, and now all of a sudden they want to throw out the bath water with the baby. Now I think this program is functioning. I don’t believe that the Public Works director is requesting any changes. I think we should -- this program should be left intact as it is. Mr. Oliver: That’s a decision that this Commission needs to make. Mr. Colclough: I understand. Mr. Oliver: If you want to do that, all that needs to be done is either come up with about $30,000-40,000 in revenue or cut expenses in another area and perhaps the Public Works director could suggest changes as to how she could cut $30,000-40,000 in another area. Mr. Colclough: I think this should be left up to the Public Works director and I think this program is working, it’s done a great job for us in cleaning this city up under the present structure, and I feel that if they need two extra truck drivers, and I don’t know, I’ll have to check with the Public Works director and see what they need. Mr. Oliver: I talked with her this morning as it relates to that. As I say, they had requested four. Mr. Colclough: I’ll talk with her. Mr. Oliver: Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. [MEETING ADJOURNED] 18 Lena J. Bonner Clerk of Commission CERTIFICATION: I, Lena J. Bonner, Clerk of Commission, hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of the Budget Session held on October 26, 2000. Clerk of Commission