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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-27-2001 Regular Meeting REGULAR MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER (Continuation of December 18, 2001 Meeting) December 27, 2001 [December 18, 2001 Meeting Reconvenes] Augusta Richmond County Commission reconvened at 8:00 a.m., Thursday, December 27, 2001, the Honorable Bob Young, Mayor, presiding. PRESENT: Hons. J. Brigham, Kuhlke, H. Brigham, Shepard, Beard, Cheek, Williams and Bridges, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. ABSENT: Hons. Mays and Colclough, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission. Also Present: Jim Wall, Attorney; George Kolb, Administrator; and Lena Bonner, Clerk of Commission. Mr. Mayor: Back in session to continue our session of the budget. The Chair will recognize Mr. Henry Brigham for an announcement. Mr. H. Brigham: Mr. Mayor and Commissioners, we have found that there are a couple of items that we do need to add to Administrative Services. Therefore there will be an Administrative Services Committee meeting at 10 o’clock. It had not been scheduled but it will be at 10 o’clock. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, Mr. Henry. The Clerk: 10:30. Mr. H. Brigham: 10:30? Mr. Mayor: 10:30, okay. Administrative Services will be at 10:30. And that meeting has been properly noticed. We have been asked by our Director of Human Resources, Risk Management, to add two items to the agenda. You have those items before you. Is there any objection to adding these two items to the agenda? Ms. Pelaez, let’s go ahead and dispose of these. Ms. Pelaez, if you would come forward and go over these two items and let’s see if we can dispose of those before we get back into the budget. Ms. Pelaez: Thank you, sir. I am not sure in which order you have them. The two of them are dealing with our insurance. The first one, we’re actually requesting that you approve continuing our commercial property insurance with Chubb. The reason why it’s here before you today is because with the event of September 11, the insurance carriers were very hesitant to give out quotes until the very last minute, and our quote did come in at the very last minute. There are a couple of changes in our renewal policy. Basically, we are going to change from a $50,000 deductible to a $100,000 deductible, 1 but with that change in deductible it actually decreases our premium to $160,808. That’s one of the major changes. And the other changes, there are some additional changes in our policy that’s dealing with flood coverage. And for any property that’s 1,000 feet over a flood zone, we have six properties that have been designated by the carrier that fall within this new category, and so the deductible for this property is $100,000. What we would like to do is renew it for this year and go out next year since we kind of have a knowledge base of what we will be charged for our premiums, so if we could only renew it for one year, get the bids out by the six months period of this year, so that we can have a good analysis of where we need to go. So we’re only asking for renewal for one year. Mr. Bridges: So moved. Mr. Shepard: Second. Mr. Mayor: Motion and second. Discussion? Mr. J. Brigham: [inaudible] motion and [inaudible] July 1 [inaudible] Mr. Bridges: I’ll incorporate that if there is no objection. Mr. Mayor: Any objection? None heard. All right, we have a motion on the floor that’s been seconded. All in favor of that motion, please vote aye. Mr. Mays and Mr. Colclough out. Motion carries 8-0. Mr. Mayor: Next item? Ms. Pelaez: Yes, sir, the next item is dealing with our third-party administration of our workers’ comp program. We’re actually asking to renew this contract with Hibb, [inaudible] and Hamilton, which we also call HRH, from January 2002 to January 2004. We’ve actually worked with this company for a period of five years. For the past five years, their rate has not increased. It’s been $49,000 a year. And they went up modestly this year to -- well, actually beginning January 1, to $58,000. And we’re just asking that we go ahead and renew that contract. We have had an excellent working relationship with this company. They have helped us in areas in workers’ comp that we don’t currently deal with in-house, and so at this point in time we don’t see any need to change, and we just recommend renewal. Mr. Mayor: Gentlemen? Mr. Bridges: Move for approval. Mr. Shepard: Second. Mr. Mayor: Discussion? 2 Mr. Williams: Mr. Mayor? Mr. Cheek: Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor: Yes, Mr. Williams and then Mr. Cheek. Mr. Williams: Ms. Pelaez, I heard you say that, you know, the 9/11 situation was the reason for one insurance. Both reason the same why we’re coming to this state or this time, because of 9/11; is that what you’re saying? Ms. Pelaez: Well, for HRH, no, sir. The first one that we just dealt with, yes, that was the reason. Last minute. The one with HRH, the first quote, actually the first couple of quotes that they came in, we were negotiating because we felt that the price was a little too high for the services that they were offering, and so this is really just a final end result of negotiations. Mr. Williams: When did these negotiations come in? I’m just trying to figure out why we let everything get to the wall before we can move and then we look like we got to do something. And it’s no reflection on you, I just want to know. Ms. Pelaez: Let me have my Risk Management manager give you a little bit of the history on this. Mr. Williams: Okay. Ms. Wright: We are self-insured for the workers’ comp, and these are third party administrators that take of all the payments of the expenses involved around the workers’ comp. They were waiting on -- they’ve been bought out and they’ve been waiting on their new bosses to let them know how much they’re going to increase their billing processes. We started back in September asking for the renewal price, and they would not give us a renewal at that time, a price to do that. So we kind of just were waiting on them. I mean we talked with them a number of times about how much they had helped us and we did want to continue their services but we were not going to be able to handle a large increase, and if they were going to come to the table with a large increase for next year, we would end up going out for bids for this service next year. They did keep the increase down to $8,000. Mr. Williams: So had they came out with a large increase, you are saying we would have went out for bids? Ms. Wright: We would have asked for an extension to their services, pending a bid process early next year. Mr. Williams: Okay. I’ve got something else, but I’m going to let Commissioner Cheek. 3 Mr. Mayor: Mr. Cheek? Mr. Cheek: Just as a matter of information, how many claims do we have against the city for workers’ compensation, and what’s the total cost to the city on an annual basis, on average? Ms. Wright: For this year we had just under 400 claims. That total cost this year -- now the expenditures for this year also include all claims -- we’ve spent almost $700,000. Mr. Cheek: And of these 400 claims, if we factor out those that occurred this last calendar year, those are all on-the-job injuries that occurred? Ms. Wright: Yes, they are. Mr. Cheek: You said $700,000? Ms. Wright: That’s correct. Mr. Cheek: If we had a decent safety program in place, we could probably reduce that figure, don’t you think? Ms. Wright: I’m sure we could. Mr. Cheek: Thank you, ma’am. Ms. Wright: If we did purchase insurance for workers’ comp, it would be in excess of $2 million, so there is a savings by having a self-insured program. Mr. Cheek: There’s also a savings for adopting a zero injury target within our work force and working towards that goal instead of accepting the repeated. This is, $700,000 is probably a figure that is pretty constant from year to year, isn’t it? Ms. Wright: No, this is actually a high year. And something that we have started doing is when an employee is injured, safety material is taken to the department, the employee is talked with, and materials are given to the supervisor for them to handle in a safety meeting. We’re making them aware of some of the problems they have, and we’re just waiting to see if we’re going to get some good results from it. Mr. Cheek: What would you say an average yearly cost to the citizens of Augusta is on workers’ comp? I know you said $700,000 is last year. Ms. Wright: For this year? Just throwing out a catastrophic claim, about $500,000 is generally what we would spend in the course of a year. 4 Mr. Cheek: I know, Mr. Mayor, we formed a committee to review and improve the safety program. I do look forward to meeting and us working on that, helping reduce both the pain and suffering to our employees and the cost to the people of Augusta. Thank you. Mr. Mayor: Mr. Jerry Brigham? Mr. J. Brigham: [inaudible] Ms. Wright: Pretty much, yes, sir. Mr. J. Brigham: [inaudible] Ms. Wright: Right. Medical costs are on the increase, yes, sir. Mr. J. Brigham: [inaudible] administration [inaudible] third party administration costs. Ms. Wright: Yes, sir. Mr. J. Brigham: You can take [inaudible]. Ms. Wright: And there has not been an increase in the five year period. Mr. Mayor: Anything further? We have a motion on the floor to approve the renewal of the third party administration for workers compensation effective January 1, 2002. All in favor of that motion, please vote aye. Mr. Mays and Mr. Colclough out. Motion carries 8-0. Mr. Mayor: Mr. Kolb, this is an update you’re passing out? Mr. Kolb: Yes. [inaudible] Mr. Mayor: Gentlemen, we will resume our discussion of the budget. I draw your attention to the handout Mr. Kolb is in the process of passing out, which is the latest version of Kolb 1.3 or something or whatever it is. Mr. Kolb: It should 9:02 on the bottom. I apologize. You had my second-to-the last draft. Mr. Mayor: All right, 12/27/01, 9:02 a.m. is the version we’re working on. Mr. Kolb: That is correct. That is correct. That is the official version. 5 Mr. Mayor: Mr. Kolb, I’ll go ahead and recognize you for discussion of the document you’ve just handed out to us. Mr. Kolb: Mr. Mayor, members of the Commission, at your last Commission meeting you asked for two things, and I will pass out the second thing that you asked for. First of all, you asked us to look at developing a proposal, a proposed budget for the general fund, law enforcement and fire protection fund, to minimize the millage specifically to bring it in at less than 1.75 mills, and also, number two, to provide you with an organizational chart of the organization. I have not had a chance to review the organizational chart, but as I understand it, it is the latest facsimile. I would consider it a work-in-progress, so if there are any questions, we can bring it back to you at a later date. Now, back to the budget, after reviewing the three funds and making the cuts that you had requested, there are some significant changes from what you reviewed at your last session. First of all, again, we deleted the new programs that you had slated or scheduled for cuts. We added back some of those items. Those items are itemized in the right hand column under Schedule A, B and C. After we did add those back, we began the process of attempting to balance the budget. Now under Schedule C is a heading called Proposed Funding Source. We increased the last salaries, we reduced your proposed contingency from $800,000 down and we took out of it about $428,000, a little more than that. We cut Recreation, took the reductions that had been presented to you at the last meeting from Recreation and Public Works, and the we also scoured the budget and looked for additional funds that we could further reduce so that we could attempt to provide the non- Public Safety salary adjustments. Taking all of those proposed funding sources, we were able to reduce the millage increase in the general fund to zero and actually balance the budget and provide a fairly decent program. Now I would like to emphasize one change. In terms of Schedule E, you’ll notice under the founding source there is a $1,155,992 reduction. That includes two sources. One source is the indigent care payment of $965,000 that was earmarked for University Hospital, and also a payment of approximately $190,000 to the Department of Family and Children’s Services for the administration of that program. We are pleased to announce that after discussions, detailed discussions with University Hospital, and also the potential introduction of a new program called Project Access, they have agreed to absorb indigent care costs and provide the same level of service as has been provided in the past for the upcoming fiscal year. They graciously recognized the financial plight that the city is in and they understand that. In exchange for that, however, we are transitioning to a new era in providing indigent care, and it’s called Project Access. And it will be a more, of more benefit to the indigents when we are providing medical care. It’s going to take a while for us to get up, it’s not projected to get up until January 1 of 2003; however, there is a transition period and we have set aside $400,000 to assist in that transition. I believe that what we’re going to is a much better program, it’s more cost effective, as the federal government through its Medicare and Medicaid program, as I understand it, will be absorbing much of the cost that was previously absorbed by the hospitals and the municipalities. We will be working with University Hospital and the other hospitals in the area to ensure that this program is implemented and that it is implemented in a manner that it will produce the benefits that it is claiming that it does. We’re thankful to University Hospital for their assistance. That played a big role in terms of helping to 6 balance this budget. In addition, we identified the office of the Marshal, their costs with respect to homeland security, and we have allocated those costs to the Law Enforcement fund. The Law Enforcement fund and the Fire Protection fund, after reviewing their expenses, reviewing their programs, we are recommending that you increase the millage in the Law Enforcement fund by 1.106 mills. The Fire Protection fund, that millage would be levied an additional .449 mills. Together, the total millage rate for county M&O, maintenance and operations, and also the Fire Protection Fund and the Law Enforcement fund, would total 1.55 mills. We believe it is a good proposal; we believe it will accomplish many of the goals that you’ve set out to accomplish for fiscal year 2002, and therefore we would recommend that you would adopt this budget based on the proposals as submitted to your earlier. I will answer any questions that you may have. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, Mr. Kolb. The Chair will recognize the Finance Committee chairman, Mr. Shepard. Mr. Shepard: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I did want to comment that the balancing of the General Fund budget is due in large part to the generosity this year of University Hospital. I told them privately and I tell them publicly now from this podium that I want to thank them for their commitment to continue indigent care after the subsidy that we were going to provide them. I want to tell them that they have this Commissioner’s full support of Project Access. It was a program that Commissioner Jerry Brigham and I were first made aware of at MAACO in 2000, and it’s a program that we took the time to go to Asheville in the fall of 2000, along with the University Hospital president and chief financial officer and the president of the Medical Society. And we want to again, like I say, publicly thank them for their help this year and to re-express our commitment to the Project Access system, because it will, I think, improve the care that the population of this community that does qualify for that program, the indigent population, it will benefit that population, bring them better care, and it will help solve our budget crisis, not on just a one-time basis, but on a sustainable basis, and I do want to point out to the Commissioners that we’re leaving money in the budget for Project Access this year. We may be leaving too much, but we want to express our commitment to that project. There are going to be some start-up costs, which are estimated to be about $100,000, and we’re leaving some additional money in there to back-stop that and the DFACS work that still may be necessary. But there will be an item in future budgets for purchase of the prescription drugs that are frequently requested and prescribed by the Project Access physicians. One of the things that we learned about Project Access in Asheville was that you would have the patients present their Project Access cards to the providers, to the physicians, and then they would have no way of filling the prescriptions that were ordered for them. So the Commissioners of the [inaudible] County, North Carolina government agreed that their role would be to purchase these, what they call formulary drugs, which means approved drugs for the various prescribed illnesses. So I would tell you Commissioners that we will have something to continue in the future but it will be less of a line item than it has been in the past, and it represents a significant step forward in cooperation between this body and University Hospital. I can remember several budgets where this particular item was a very contentious one, and this year we are working together with University Hospital to solve this problem and bring about the care 7 to those who need it and in a very cost-effective way. This is, as you Commissioners know, this is a project of a lot of work so far, to get the General fund and the Law Enforcement fund and the Fire fund in balance. Of all the funds presented to us on December 20, 2001, these were the only three out of balance. All the other funds were I’m balanced, including the Enterprise funds, and so before I yield the mike, Mr. Mayor, going to make a motion that we approve all the balanced Enterprise funds and the General fund, the Law Enforcement fund, and the Fire Protection fund, the Enterprise funds and other funds being shown on the budget document dated December 20, 2001, prepared by the Administrator, and the General fund, the Law Enforcement fund, and the Fire Protection fund being shown on the one dated December 27, at 9:02 a.m. Mr. Mayor: All right. Is there a second to that motion? Mr. Bridges: I’ll second the motion. Mr. Mayor: We have a motion that’s been properly seconded. Mr. Beard, is your hand up? Mr. Beard: Yes. Mr. Mayor: Go ahead. Mr. Beard: Mr. Mayor, I just want to note a couple of things here. I think with this budget, my main contention has been indigent care here that we were leaving out. I think we owe a debt of gratitude also to Larry Read at University Hospital. This is the first time I’ve known them in the last five years to come forth and offer some type of assistance. We know that they had a banner year last year, and I think this is the type of thing that we’ve been asking all along, that everybody come to the table and give a little because this is our community. It’s not just one [inaudible] community. It involves a lot of people. So I’m glad to see them doing that. I’m also hoping that, and I guess to our Attorney, that we do some type of contract to make sure that this is available. Larry, we talked to him this morning, he felt like that wouldn’t be a problem with that. So I’m sure that could be worked out. And the reason I’m saying this is because a lot of times we make promises down the road and sometimes those promises kind of evaporate somewhere down the line. But I’m sure that our Attorney will take care of that part of it. I think that a lot of our Commissioners have had input into this budget and hopefully they have worked hard, and especially our Finance Chairman. I want to give him credit for kind of leading the way on this, and being able to talk to other Commissioners about this and not being criticized. Because a lot of time we are criticized when we get together and we start dealing and delving into thing, you know some Commissioners are easily criticized for that, and they are micromanaging, but I want to say that I think he did a very good job working with that. Project Access, I really feel that this may be the way to go. We have to see how it’s going to work out. I was a little concerned about the time line because we’re not only dealing with University Hospital, we’re dealing with another agency there also. And I’m concerned about the time line. I’ve been assured that 8 University will provide the quality of care for our citizens this year, even if we -- the time line for Project Access is in January of ’03. So I think that if we wrap this up very neatly and make sure that we’ve done everything correctly, and you never know that until it’s done, but I think with the contracts involved in this, with their commitment, I think that we may be on the right source here. I’ve said all along that this should be a combination of things. Everybody had to give a little. We talked about the millage rate, we have talked about the Sheriff’s Department. We’ve talked about all our other agencies, our Department Heads. And I think all of them have been very cooperative in this and I think this is good. This is what is needed, as we all come to the table. We all gave a little bit and it looks like we may have a balanced budget here. I also would like to thank the Administrator. He’s been working very hard the last couple of weeks here, trying to get this down, trying to get everybody, all the Commissioners involved, and all trying to satisfying both Commissioners that were involved. I think we -- my pet peeve was the indigent care. I think that will be taken care of. I also had been -- Larry committed to work with DFACS on this. We do know we have five people over there working through DFACS with indigent care. We feel that that is going to be taken care of okay. So, Mr. Mayor, I think we are -- I guess we are we most all had a hand in this, including the Mayor, in trying to work this out. And all Commissioners spent a lot of time trying to work this out and come up with a balanced budget. And I know this is not going to satisfy everybody. I really am concerned about Public Works and Recreation, the Georgia Games. I know we have all things to take care of, but we also know that we are going to have a tight year. And hopefully next year we can implement some programs and talk about some things that even Commissioner Cheek has talked about, where we can still get this down a little bit, because some of the things we’ve cut and we need to for the future, and we hope that we can restore some of those in the coming year. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, Mr. Beard. The Chair recognizes Mr. Cheek and then Mr. Williams. Mr. Cheek: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I notice that the figures have changed on some of our funding sources and so forth, so I have several questions. On the deleting new programs, does that include our training programs, total quality programs, and so forth that we had hoped to implement? Mr. Kolb: Yes. Mr. Cheek: And it also does away with our economic development person? Mr. Kolb: All but $96,000, which you already had in the budget, as a contribution to the [inaudible]. However, we may be able to continue the creation of the economic development department through the Richmond County Development Authority, so we are pursuing those opportunities. Mr. Cheek: You and I know that training and changing the mindset of a work culture takes time and funding, and so we’ve basically in this budget abandoned that for 9 the status quo. Lapsed salaries is $400,000 down here. I know last year we discussed the positions and the department heads coming back and justifying for those positions. Do we have any positions in that that have been vacant for more than this going into two years and are there some of those that we can permanently eliminate for the future? Mr. Kolb: I cannot answer that question at this time. We can research that. However, I would not recommend it. What we would do is recycle a new set of vacancies as needed. Of course, we would eliminate those that are no longer needed, but we would probably, since those jobs have not been done in quite a while, we probably need to get them filled and then let other vacancies develop during the year. And I also am relying on attrition so that turnover would be a part of the lapsed salaries. Mr. Cheek: Well, we’ve talked about the budget being balanced, but what we’ve continued to ignore, and I say this based on the fact that we are not providing for maintenance of Riverwalk in this budget, maintenance and upkeep, other than just cleaning trash; is that correct? Mr. Kolb: No, that is not totally true. We are, as you will note under Schedule A -- well, Schedule B -- we are hiring the personnel to supervise prisoners. Mr. Cheek: That’s cleanup, right? Mr. Kolb: That’s correct. Mr. Cheek: That doesn’t include replacing bricks or guard rails? Mr. Kolb: That is in your capital outlay budget. That has not come to you as of yet. It was more important to get the municipal services budget together. We will bring that to you shortly after the first of the year. Mr. Cheek: So we haven’t lost our maintenance and upkeep program for Riverwalk; or have we? The thing is, for every $5 repair we put off today, it’s $25 tomorrow, and $50 two weeks from now. And you know, the thing I’m concerned about is any tax increase is bad, and I’m not going to sit here and in one sentence say we can’t afford a tax increase and then in the next sentence say this is okay. Are we eliminating any head count with this? Mr. Kolb: Yes. There would be 15 lost in Recreation and I believe it’s 21 lost out of Public Works. And to answer your previous question, just in consultation, we have lost $120,000 that we have set aside for routine maintenance out of the Riverwalk. Mr. Cheek: So we’re basically status quo again. And you know, the thing about status quo in maintenance is maintenance needs don’t stay stable, they continue to degrade, based on the amount of damage that’s done. Contingency, we’re still taking $400,000 out of Contingency? 10 Mr. Kolb: Yes, sir. Mr. Cheek: To balance the budget, so we’re still going into savings. Recreation Department reductions -- how many centers are we closing as a result of this? Mr. Beck: Mr. Mayor, members of the Commission, we would actually be closing -- this would be dependent on actually leasing W.T. Johnson Community Center to 30901, but we would actually close two recreation sites, one at Dyess Park and one at Merry Street Ceramics Shop. Mr. Cheek: How about reduction of programs or our ability to go out and get the Police League Boxing Tournaments and so forth? Have those funds been deleted? Do we still have funding available? The funding has been deleted? Mr. Beck: As was mentioned last week, the funding for the bid fees for the National Police Athletic League Tournament, as well as two national ASA softball tournaments, are in these elimination of programs. So those would not come to Augusta. Mr. Cheek: And I guess for the record, I’m sure Macon and Columbus and Savannah are very actively seeking additional venues to bring tourism to their city, but we’re abandoning that in this budget. Public Works, reduction -- thank you, Tom. Public Works reduction -- Madame Director, what impact is this going to have on Public Works as far as ability to repair potholes and clean ditches and the many other things that are necessary to keep our city looking good? Ms. Smith: Mr. Mayor, members of the Commission, the actual impact that these reductions are having primarily will deal with the elimination of the print shop that is a service, an organization that provides internal service, and for reproduction of our letterhead, it provides internal print services. It also provides for the delivery of your Commission books. It provides for the fact that we have several departments within the Augusta Richmond County government that are located in many different parts of the city. As such, we have a courier who runs on a daily basis that allows the government to continue to flow in an efficient manner, even though we are located in multiple locations. That will now either have to be done with those departments having a member of their staff that will be responsible for bringing mail and documents to the Municipal Building or it will get sent through U.S. Mail, which of course will slow down how we do business as a government. The other primary item that will be impacted is right now the Public Works Departments cuts vacant lots. If there is an ordinance violation where private citizens do not maintain their property in accordance with ordinance, either the License & Inspection Department or the Marshal’s Department issues a citation, goes through the process, the Public Works Department then goes out and cuts or maintains that vacant property. The impact of the budget, and I don’t know what the information is on that, has to do with the fines that are received from that. Those fines will no longer be coming in to the General fund budget, but we would no longer send people out to cut those vacant properties. The other impact has to do with janitorial service to both the Municipal Building and the Joint Law Enforcement Center. The services would be reduced to three 11 days per week. We did not include in our reductions impacts to those items that we consider items to be potential liability issues, and that included the pothole repairs and the ditch maintenance which is very important when it comes to our flood control responsibilities, so those are not included in the package. But we will see a difference in the way Augusta Richmond County conducts business and the expediency of the service that we provide, both internally as well as to the public. Mr. Cheek: On the print shop and these other business units that we are basically phasing out, the employees that are in that from, I guess, supervision all the way down, will they be eliminated, transferred to other departments, will that whole business unit go away or we will just transfer those supervisory positions to another department and maintain that job title and pay grade for those individuals? Ms. Smith: Actually, most of the positions in the print shop are specialized areas. At this point, we have not identified other areas that those particular positions would be able to be utilized. However, we have not looked at the resumes or the skills of those employees to determine whether or not we will be able to fill some other vacancies with those same personnel, and we will be working with the Human Resources Department, as well as those individuals, to find out whether or not current vacancies that we have would be able to be filled by some of those personnel prior to bringing new people on staff. Ms. Pelaez has information on what vacancies there are in the departments across the county government, so we do want to work with her to try and make sure that if there are vacancies, we look at placing those persons into those positions prior to bringing new people aboard. Mr. Kolb: Mr. Mayor, if I may interrupt for one second. There will be a RIF process involving people, but the actual budgeted positions will be eliminated. So we’ll have to, according to policy we have to put a reduction in force plan together, and we will do that to determine if we can find other jobs within the organization that these individuals so impacted could qualify for. Mr. Cheek: I’m just concerned that we don’t get in a situation where we’re maintaining head count at the expense of operational funding. You want to be as humanitarian as you can for our employees, but having a bunch of middle managers, for instance, sitting around and have eliminated all of our work force in the field. I know, Teresa, that you will work around that, and HR will work around that. But the most savings is to be had by eliminating the middle management and upper management positions. About three or four grass cutters equals, you know, one administrator. So I hope we’ll look at that and try to maintain services at a current level. And I guess lastly - - thank you, Teresa. Lastly, again we went with an across-the-board cut last year, and I notice that for $406,000 we’re talking about other department reductions, not [inaudible], who were these people. I know when we eliminate Recreation and Public Works and have taken care of Law Enforcement and Public Safety, that doesn’t leave a lot of people. Who are we actually going to get this $400,000 from? 12 Mr. Kolb: We actually went through budget-by-budget, and no budget was left untouched, including the Mayor and Commissioners. Now you guys got lucky. We didn’t get into a RIF situation. (Laughter) Mr. Cheek: The voters will take care of that. Mr. Kolb: However, we went through each budget and we’ve been doing the line item by line item, which I am totally against. However, we were able to glean about $400,000 out of those. We do have a list of those. That’s how we got it. Mr. Cheek: I guess in closing, Mr. Mayor, I looked through my list of positions that we’ve increased over the past few years, and a lot of them are outside our realm of control here as Commissioners to the other constitutional officers. We’ve added people at the Coroner’s office and the various court offices and so forth. I’m sure the Courts and the Coroner need folks, but we need folks in Public Works, and we need folks in Recreation. Recreation has been used to sell sales tax twice now. People overwhelmingly support the quality of life amenities that we bring to this community. I’m very concerned if we back away from attracting or half-stepping in the Georgia Games and not funding it like we should. We’ll jeopardize our ability to attract the Georgia Games in the future, which is hundreds and hundreds of people in our hotels and restaurants. The same is true for our other sporting venues. Again, Augusta does not have mountains or an ocean. We’ve got a nice river, and nice old city, with some of the best sporting facilities in the southeast. If we’re going to offset the impact of a recession on the local option sales tax, the only way to do that is to do something that will attract people to this community, and the very thing that does that, other than the Masters golf tournament, is the thing that we’re de-funding. Other cities are quite anxious to get this business, and it’s a shame that I see Augusta backing away from it. I’m concerned that we’re still going into savings, I’m concerned that we’re doing away with training necessary to change this work culture from some better rooted in the 50’s with 17 different departments doing their own thing, to a single job unit work force team here in Augusta. I’m concerned that we are backing away from our Public Works and other responsibilities that brought this city forward. I hate to see us continue to repeat the mistakes. Something as glaring as Riverwalk, where we are often quoted about not having a maintenance program. After one year of discussion of that in the public, we’re still doing the same thing. Again, a $2 repair today is a $10 repair in a week, and a $20 repair in a year. It’s just like the deputies. The more we cycle the deputies through, we train them for $25,000 and they leave. Are we being smart or penny-wise and pound- foolish? We can defer these costs as long as you want to from year to year, and it becomes the responsibility of the future Commissions. I’d just like to see us solve these problems and move on to addressing other problems. I applaud the hard work that went into this. It’s at least a step in the right direction. But those are my concerns. Mr. Mayor: Mr. Williams? Mr. Kolb? 13 Mr. Kolb: If I can just add. One of the deletions which I failed to mention and I should mention for this hearing is that we deleted the tag office temporary employees. And as I understand it from the Tax Commissioner, that will result in the closing of the tag office in south Augusta. Mr. Mayor: Mr. Williams? Mr. Williams: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I, too, like Mr. Cheek, am not totally satisfied with what I see here. I hate to be the one to say I told you, but I told you so all year long, and when I was crying and hollering about how we was spending and what we was spending on, and people thought that we was just trying to attack people who was spending, but we’ve got to be more accountable for the taxpayers, more accountable for the things we do. We can always find room to justify buying. And I remember my colleague, Commissioner Shepard, kidded me about the automobile, as being the automobile expert. I think we spend a lot of money in a lot of different areas that we could have done something different. Now we at the end of the year and it’s crunch time and we looking around as if we don’t know what to do. Nobody want to talk about raising taxes. Well, I been saying it from day one, and I think the reason people don’t want to raise taxes is because they don’t see anything for their tax dollars. If people could see where their tax dollars are going, they wouldn’t mind paying taxes. That’s something that nobody likes to even think about, but that’s something we’ve got to do. We’re the second largest city in this state of Georgia, but we sure don’t act like it, and we sure don’t pay our taxes like it. I think our Administrator brought it to our attention at our last meeting about Augusta was the only city, the lowest tax rate of all the cities in this area. I don’t think we ought to just raise taxes to be raising taxes. But I think we ought to be able to be aggressive and be able to do some things. I do think we have a lot of waste. I do think we’ve got some fat that we can trim down. But until we get to that point, until we can get aggressive and do some things, I think we going to really hurt ourselves. When it comes to Public Works, you talking about lots cleaned and ditches cleaned. All of that, 90% of that, I’d say, is in my district. People are living with ditches in front of their houses and behind their houses and grass is growing as fast as the leaves come on the trees. And these people want some relief. And you say why do they live there? Well, they can’t move anywhere else; what they going to do? I mean we’re taxpayers and we’re paying taxes. And I think if people seen that kind of work done, I think people would appreciate it. You’re talking about Recreation, and I look at Tom, we’re trying to do something with Apple Valley, out that area. We’re trying to do something with Savannah Place, and then we want to cut Recreation. I mean it -- we done cut everything we can cut out, I believe, and I think we need to get aggressive and understand that we going to have to either do it this year or next year or some time, we going to have to do something with taxes. And we going to have to do something that it’s going to be aggressive, and I think the people wouldn’t mind doing it if we hold those people accountable that has our money to do those things that we’re supposed to be collecting the taxes to do. I’m really not pleased with what’s going on here today. I mean we got to do something and here we got up against the wall again. I remember, Ms. Pelaez, when she was standing up, I was telling her, look like we always wait until our back is against the wall, then we want to speak out and say well, we got to do 14 something now. We should have done something a long time ago. We been crying wolf, wolf, but the wolf is here now and we really need to look at what we doing in this city and try to be an aggressive city and try to change some things. We can’t do the same thing and expect them results. Talking about Project Access, I got no problem with that, Mr. Beard and Mr. Shepard. I think you did a good job. But I’m not pleased. I hear the word mentioned University Hospital, then I heard another medical association. I would like to have a contract from Mr. Wall, I would like to know what that contract says, I would like to know if it’s going to be University Hospital or if it’s going to be some other medical facility that is handling that. I been told a lot of things. Jim, I’m going to refer to you. I told you how people promise you something and then when time come and it ain’t there, I been done that way. And I really don’t -- I been bitten one time so I’m scared, I’m afraid to accept what somebody tell us now, Mr. Shepard. I know that they mean well, but we’ve got to be aggressive, we’ve got to understand, we going to really hurt some people. You talking about the economy is down, but you talking about 25 or 30 people losing their jobs right here in this city. I mean we need to think about that and we need to put ourselves in those people’s position. I keep saying we got some workers that getting paid that’s not doing anything, but we got some good people that’s putting out for us and keeping this government together. And they really are not getting anything, but we going to lose some good people if we do this. And I’m only one vote, and I understand that. But I think we ought to get aggressive, we ought to be men, we ought to bite the bullet. We was elected to do a job, and we ought to do that job. And if the people don’t appreciate what we done, then they don’t have to vote for us again. I mean I can speak for myself, don’t have to vote for me again. Cause I just think that we need to get aggressive and move this city forward like it ought to be moved and not sit around here twiddle our thumbs and act like we can’t do nothing. What we going to do next year this time? If we don’t do it today, gentlemen, it’s coming sooner or later. I said in church in Sunday if trouble ain’t never knocked on your door, just keep on living cause it’s coming. And if it ain’t never knocked on this Commission door, it’s coming to this Commission. So we going to have to do it now or do it later. That’s all I got to say, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor: Thank you, Mr. Williams. Mr. Kuhlke? Mr. Kuhlke: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, there are two things that were on Schedule A that have been eliminated that are going to come back to us at some point, and I’m wondering if we ought not deal with it today. And that’s the Lucy Craft Laney Museum and the Augusta Historical Museum. I would like to see if the maker of the motion would include in his motion that we amend the agreement with CVB, with the Augusta Museum, and then direct the Housing & Neighborhood Development to fund the Lucy Craft Laney Museum, which they can do. If we don’t do that, there’s something Mr. Williams and myself are interest in, I think we’re going to have some problems and I think it’s going to come back to us, and I think that we have an obligation to try to take care of those institutions. I don’t know if that muddies the water. And Mr. Kolb, I’d like to ask you a question because Mr. Cheek’s referred that we went into our savings fund balance, but I believe that the new budget that you represented to us today does not going into the fund balance; am I correct? 15 Mr. Kolb: No, it does. We go into the fund balance to the tune of $2.6 million. This is what was earlier referred to as Contingency, was about $800,000. We’ve reduced it by $428,000. But your fund reserves have been reduced below your 60-day requirement. Mr. Kuhlke: How many days do we have now? Mr. Kolb: It will take it to 58. Mr. Kuhlke: 58? Anyway -- Mr. Kolb: I stand to be corrected. We only used $1.6 million, which gives us -- we have left about 62 days of fund balance. Mr. Kuhlke: Okay. Anyway, my main interest is that with those two museums, I think if we don’t go ahead and pay attention to it today, it would have no effect on the General budget, that it’s going to be come back to us and we’re going to have to deal with it at some point. Mr. Mayor: Is there any objection to amending the motion to include the recommendation from Commissioner Kuhlke? Mr. Shepard? Mr. Shepard: Mr. Mayor. Mr. Kuhlke, you said it has no impact on the General budget. Where are you taking those monies from? Mr. Kuhlke: I think that what we would do is to -- Jim, I guess, would amend the agreement we have with the Convention & Visitors Bureau for the Augusta Museum of History and then work with Housing & Neighborhood Development for funding on the Lucy Craft Laney Museum, which I think funds are available through or can be available through Housing & Neighborhood Development for that particular museum, but not for the Augusta Museum. Mr. Wall: I think what you would be amending is not the agreement with the CVB but would actually be the ordinance that provides for the distribution of the proceeds. Mr. Kuhlke: That’s right. Mr. Mayor: Would you need a second reading on that, Jim? You want to waive that? Mr. Wall: Yes, I mean that needs to be in writing and you would need a second reading on that. Mr. Mayor: We could waive that as part of the motion. 16 Mr. Wall: I can bring that back on January 2. Mr. Mayor: Okay. Mr. Beard: Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor: Yes, Mr. Beard? Mr. Beard: I’m still wondering, I’m not clear on the funding for this. And also, how would this, Mr. Administrator, how would this impact the budget at this point and where would the funding come from and how much are we talking about, Mr. Kuhlke? Mr. Kuhlke: Mr. Beard, the way it was, the ordinance was, that hotel-motel tax that went to, the additional hotel-motel tax that went to the Convention & Visitors Bureau, and that was $300,000, and then $150,000 to Lucy Craft Laney Museum. Mr. Kolb: The answer for the budget standpoint, we had proposed that both programs be funded out of the General fund, out of General operating budgets. They were cut under the new programs category. I’m not sure about either funding source, whether -- Mr. Kuhlke: We have an ordinance that directs the Convention & Visitors Bureau to fund the Augusta Museum, and then I think if I’m not mistaken, Mr. Williams, did we not get some money out of Housing & Neighborhood Development last year for Lucy Craft Laney Museum? Mr. Williams: That’s correct, Mr. Kuhlke. Mr. Mayor, if I might, I need to know is that funding available now, though? Mr. Kolb: That is the one I cannot answer. There is a -- and I’m not sure what category that would fit into, whether it would fit into Public Service, but we are under a HUD regulation that we have to reduce our Public Service funding by 5%, in fact. From 15% to 10%, I should say. So I will have to check that and come back to you, whether or not it would impact that particular budget. Mr. Williams: Can we get that -- Mr. Mayor: Just a minute, Mr. Beard had the floor. Mr. Williams: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Mr. Beard: I would love to do this, but I don’t see how this could be incorporated today, with so many unanswerable questions at this point. I think it’s a very good gesture to do this, and I would love to see it done. But I think to incorporate it today, I just don’t see [inaudible] now. 17 Mr. Mayor: Is it something we could refer to today’s Finance Committee meeting? Would that give Mr. Kolb enough time to get the information together? Mr. Shepard? Mr. Shepard: I’d be happy to have it on the Finance Committee, Mr. Mayor. I had proposed in one of my proposals that we look at the additional penny available on the hotel-motel tax for additional sources of funding, and now if the Laney Museum qualifies for a source of funding other than that, I’m happy to do that, whereas the Augusta Museum of History, I was looking, Bill, for funding out of those penny taxes. If it doesn’t affect the General Fund, I think we ought to leave that alone right now. I’d be happy to discuss it, if we don’t have any objection, to discuss it at the 11 o’clock Finance Committee meeting. But I think we ought to leave these General -- these General funds, Law Enforcement and Fire protection are fairly precariously balanced with tax increases, service cuts, use of fund balance, I mean it’s pretty complex already, and to add that additional variable in there, particularly when they qualify for non-General fund funding sources, I think we just need to leave that alone. Mr. Mayor: Mr. Cheek? Mr. Cheek: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just as a reminder, in discussion with the Administrator yesterday, a young man came in at the first part of the budget hearing and discussed extending the operating hours of pubs and restaurants and so forth as a means to help provide additional revenue, which as my understanding it would come into a fund that both of the museums could qualify for, and so I would like to see us at least expedite the consideration of those measure if it would provide additional funding for this coming year and could very well pay for or certainly offset the cost of running these museums, as a funding source. Mr. Mayor: Mr. Williams? Mr. Williams: No, sir. My last comment, Mr. Mayor, would be whether or not the University Hospital or some other medical entity is going to do this agreement we’ve got. I never did get a clarification on that and I’d like to have answer, please. Mr. Mayor: I can state that there will be a written contract. We’ve already discussed that with Mr. Wall. Mr. Williams: Okay, will that be through University Hospital or will that be some other medical association? That’s my question, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor: My understanding it will be between Richmond County and the Medical Society, the Richmond County Medical Society. Anything further? Mr. Jerry Brigham? Mr. J. Brigham: Call the question. 18 Mr. Mayor: The question has been called on the motion from Mr. Shepard to approve the three budgets that we have on this sheet, along with all the Enterprise fund budgets and the others that have been previously enumerated. We have the question that’s been called. All in favor of the motion, please vote aye. Mr. Mays and Mr. Colclough out. Motion carries 6-2. Mr. Mayor: Is there any further business to come before this body? Mr. Shepard: Move we adjourn. Mr. Mayor: Motion to adjourn. Second? Mr. Speaker: Second. Mr. Mayor: We’re adjourned without objection. 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 minutes of the continuation of the December 18, 2001 Regular Meeting of Augusta Richmond County Commission held on December 27, 2001. Clerk of Commission 19