HomeMy WebLinkAboutRegular Commission Meeting November 17, 2009 _
REGULAR MEETING COMMISSION CHAMBER
(Continuation of November 17, 2009 Meeting) DECEMBER 1, 2009
The Augusta Richmond County Commission reconvened at 1:50 p.m., Tuesday,
December 1, 2009, the Honorable Deke Copenhaver, Mayor, presiding.
PRESENT: Hons. Holland, Smith, Mason, Grantham, Hatney, Johnson, Jackson, Bowles
and Brigham, members of Augusta Richmond County Commission.
ABSENT: Hon. Beard, member of Augusta Richmond County Commission.
Continuation of discussion regarding the adoption of the 2010 Budget.
Mr. Russell: --- the parks that we need to keep open, it provides for access to The Patch
for six months and allows us to look at opportunities for privatization as you requested. And it
continues to move us forward. You know as you look at what we are and how we do it I cannot
begin to emphasize to you how lucky we are. And I say that over and over again. But we’re not
facing some of the challenges that other communities are facing and we’re being rewarded for
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that. Just today I was made aware that on the Forbes list we’re 22 in the list of fastest
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improving economies as by Forbes. We’re 5 in another Forbes list about communities that are
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a good buy with decent jobs and great homes and places like that. That’s 5 in the country not
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5 in Southeast Georgia it’s 5 in the country. We’ve done that because we’ve been
conservative, we’ve done that because we’ve taken a very conservative approach and for those of
you that have been here for the last three years we’ve done that without raising taxes. Very few
communities can talk about that. In addition we’ve done that without creating public debt. So
we’re not borrowing money. We’ve living within our means, we’re doing so in a way that I
think provides a reasonable level of services to our citizens and we would like that opportunity to
continue to do that. As you know the document the document that I’m asking you to pass today
is a living document. It’s not written in stone. It can be modified. It’s modified regularly. What
I am asking you for is the opportunity for myself and our staff with your direction to take the
goals that we’ve set, apply them over the next several months, to take an opportunity to continue
to look at our revenue, to make sure that our expenditures are well within the amounts that we’ve
allocated and then come back in August or so and talk about where we need to be at that
particular point in time. I think it’s a manageable plan. We’ve done that for the last couple of
years and I don’t think you’ve been disappointed by that. And I would just like the opportunity
to do that again. That’s pretty much the crux of what I need to say and that’s pretty much where
we’re at, at the moment. If you have any questions or any changes or any things that you’d like
to see different in the budget now would be an appropriate time to talk about it.
Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Grantham.
Mr. Grantham: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Russell, I appreciate the fact that you are
bringing us back a budget that is doable and certainly one that I’m sure that can be passed. But
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you asked for suggestions after our last meeting on November the 17 and I understand that you
did receive several suggestions in areas that were concerning to some of the Commissioners, me
for one. I ask you to let’s look at the contributions that were being made to the various agencies
within the community and it bothers me that you would come back today without any form of
either recommendations of changes or any changes that would have been recommended to you or
even any discussions along those lines. And I’m of the opinion that we need to look at that area
particularly from the standpoint of the agencies that we’re giving the funds to. Back at our last
SPLOST we asked the various agencies and people to produce and to be able to raise some
funding of their own in order to get the funds from our government for SPLOST purposes. And
I realize that these people do raise funds or they couldn’t exist as they do today but I think there
should be some form of requirement there and I don’t think we need to look at the various
agencies as being on equal terms. And I use for example the museum. That still concerns me
and bothers me to the point that we have a building that has some 40,000 plus square feet and the
Laney Walker Museum having, excuse me the Lucy Laney Museum having not nearly that large.
But we’re making the same form of contribution to both of them and with the amount of material
that’s in one versus the other as well as the staff that’s involved it concerns me that we would
continue to do that without being good business people and making wise decisions in funding the
ones in the proper manner in which they should. I’m not trying to pick on anyone but I think that
those agencies need to be looked at very carefully and I think that some form of recommendation
from you or a committee as such needs to come forward with a future recommendation on how
this is going to be handled in the future and that some establishments be given as to the amount
of money that’s given to the various agencies. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Hatney.
Mr. Hatney: Mr. Russell, how’s that handled now? Is that handled based on what?
Mr. Russell: Based on their requests, that they’ve requested and it’s traditionally been
based on what they have received in the past. The difference we’ve done in this particular case
is that we’ve attempted to fund up to their full level of request and haven’t been able to. What
we did in this case is do an across the board cut to those individuals of 15% across the board ---
Mr. Hatney: Everybody?
Mr. Russell: Yes, sir, except for those agencies that are listed that were mandated to pay
by state law or something else. Like the library did not receive that 15% cut. The Regional
Development Agency were mandated to pay ‘x’ number of dollars per, a dollar per capita to pay
for them and we actually, the second version had to reinstate about $42,000.00 to meet that state
law. So unless there’s some law that says you’ve got to pay at certain levels we did a 15% cut.
Mr. Hatney: When you’re talking about non-profit rather than (unintelligible)
Mr. Grantham: I know about all of them. I just think that, excuse me, Mr. Mayor, if you
don’t mind.
Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Hatney, are you done or are you, do you want to listen to
this?
Mr. Grantham: If he’ll yield to me for my comment based on your question.
Mr. Hatney: I’ll yield if you’ll give it back to me.
Mr. Grantham: I’ll be glad to give it back to you.
Mr. Mayor: Let’s call it a double yield.
Mr. Grantham: Okay, a double yield. But you know my only reason for that is that is we
have some many people that we’ve cut out of our budget based on requests. And granted we
can’t fund them all. And we can’t fund the full amount that everyone requests. But there’s no
way that I can look at the various organizations of serving the community in the same capacity as
being on equal terms whether it’s museums or whether it’s recreation or whether it’s ballparks,
whatever it might be. And I just feel like that based on the funding that we’re going to do, if
we’re going to make cuts and we have done that in certain areas such as and I applaud Mr.
Russell for going back and looking at a furlough. The various things that needed to be done is
now being done and this is one area that I don’t think we have made any move in trying to
benefit those who are producing more for our community as well as those who are in need of the
type of money that we give to them. So that’s my only reason for saying that, Dr. Hatney. It’s
not to look or to be picking on anyone in particular. I just think we need to give full
consideration to those agencies that are providing a service to numbers in our community. And
by providing numbers then we should be looking at the benefits that we receive for our taxpaying
citizens.
Mr. Mayor: Dr. Hatney.
Mr. Hatney: The other question I would ask is that when you, do all of these agencies
give financials annually to this government?
Mr. Russell: We started requiring that what two years ago ---
Mr. Grantham: Yeah.
Mr. Russell: --- that we, at Commissioner Grantham’s request I think if I remember
correctly that we start receiving financial reports from each of the agencies that we give dollars
to.
Mr. Hatney: But you ---
Mr. Russell: They’re on file and we get those prior to and distribution of dollars.
Mr. Hatney: Okay. But then is it possible then to look at each agency individually rather
than like we’re doing now because right now everybody if nine of them are getting like
$200,000.00 can you 15% cut everybody get 15% cut. But if you look at them based on their
financials and based on their need you might find that there’s a lot of, I’m just, you got to be
something to do.
Mr. Russell: I think that would be noble effort. My concern with that would be that it’s
very, very hard to do in the fact that you’re contribution by feeding twelve senior citizens at this
facility versus my contribution by opening up an exhibit that says three people or a hundred
people go through it becomes very objective and subjective, it’s not objective, subjected if we
determine the impact on the community. It hasn’t been my desire to go through each individual
agency that’s given us that they’ve contributed to in the past and looked at, at that particular
length. If it is the desire of the Commission to try to figure out a formula to do that and try to
figure out a mechanism that we can measure the impact upon the community by each of these
agencies you know I think that would be something that we could do but it would be a whole lot
more in depth that what we’ve ever done in the past. And it becomes somewhat burdensome
when you look at the amount of dollars we’re spending to give to these agencies. It would be my
suggestion as I suggested several years ago that if we want to get out of the public service
business we get out of the public service business. But if we’re giving contributions to these
agencies I think in my mind the mechanism we have today is sufficient to get them what they
need to do. You’ve got to realize we’re talking about less than 1% of our budget that we’re
talking about at this particular point in time. And as always we spend about 80% of our time
talking about that but that’s the one that creates the most stir. If you want to pass the budget
contingent upon reviewing those individually and creating a committee or commission to do that
then we can do that if you like. But once again I don’t think it’s our position as a staff to make
those kinds of decisions at this particular point in time.
Mr. Hatney: It just makes sense to bog down with this every year so there needs to be
some mechanism put in place whereas we won’t have to go through this every year.
Mr. Russell: And what I would, and I agree. But what I suggest you would do is that
you start that January 1 for the dollars that might be available. There will be no dispersement of
these dollars until that happens if that’s what you want. But once again I think that’s a
Commission decision and not a staff decision to make. It would be policy not operations, sir.
Mr. Hatney: Okay.
Mr. Mayor: So to approve the budget with that stipulation that we create that committee
to review funding to outside agencies.
Mr. Russell: And I would put a time frame on that because unfortunately some of these
agencies are dependent on these dollars to be able to function fairly quickly. So it’s not
something that we would want to wait several months to do. I mean some of them are going to
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be knocking on our door the 1 of January wanting to know what money they can get. So if
that’s the will of the Commission it’s obviously something we can do.
Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Holland.
Mr. Holland: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I was just listening to my colleagues and I
can understand exactly where they’re coming from in reference to this, to the appropriation of
these funds. But one of my concerns to you, Mr. Russell, is that apparently the request for these
funds, you know are needed by these different programs. Have there ever been any evidence in
reference to the requests made for these funds. Have there ever been any evidence that the funds
have been misused in any way and if there’s any way that those funds would have to be cut?
Mr. Russell: To my knowledge there’s been no evidence of any misuse or anything. But
the cuts are purely financial in nature in the fact that as you balance the budget I’ve got less
dollars to play with than I’ve had in the past. There’s no indication there that there’s anything
wrong or anything and the reason it was in our mind, and my suggestion my recommendation
because the reason it was an across the board cut would avoid us having to make a decision on
whether or not Group A did a better job that Group B. I mean I’m not too sure that that’s my
place to do that.
Mr. Holland: Okay, so ---
Mr. Russell: That’s why we recommended an across the board.
Mr. Holland: Okay, so what you did for one you did for all?
Mr. Russell: Except when required by state law to pay a certain amount to them. That
we did, yes.
Mr. Holland: Thank you.
Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Brigham then Commissioner Hatney.
Mr. Brigham: Mr. Russell, you have a great argument but likewise that was not the only
organization that we were required to fund by state law. We were required to fund the Board of
Health. We were just fortunate enough that we were over funding it above the requirements
otherwise they wouldn’t have been cut. Now I don’t think it’s very appropriate in an economy
where we have more people that are going to the Health Department to reduce their funding.
They, I understand we’re all in a pinch. We’re all trying to survive but we also have a
responsibility by being Commissioners by indigent defense and indigent care and our indigent
care we’re just slicing and dicing. We’re not even funding it at the same level as we funded last.
We were just going to reduce it. We’re very fortunate in that we got out of a long term standing
relationship with University Hospital several years ago where we were giving them millions of
dollars every year. But if we continue to cut agencies that are providing indigent care to this
community we’re not going to be better off than where we are now. We’re going to continue to
just cut like we’re doing in everything else, just slice and dice and reduce. We need to look at
our priorities in the way that we have to fund these agencies. And we need to take them into
consideration.
Mr. Russell: I don’t disagree and I think you’re absolutely right in the fact that we’re
lucky with Public Health. That we’re actually funding at above a level that’s required by the
state. If I had known that we might have cut them a little bit more because you know while
that’s an issue it’s a state issue and they need to help with that as best they can. I think you’re
absolutely right though in the fact that we need to look at these issues and determine where we’re
at and which agencies have the most impact on our community. The fact that in these economic
times people are taking advantage of Public Health in more ways than any is something we need
to be concerned about. I did not know a fair way to do that at this particular point in time based
on where we were at. I think the recommendations that we’re talking about though where the
Commission itself sets that policy on how it’s funded within the dollar amounts available I think
it’s a great idea. You have a wonderful argument. I mean I can’t argue with you at all about
what you’re saying. There’s a need there. I can argue that need in almost any other case too
where they’ve asked for dollars. But in that particular case I feel as much compassion as you do
and I think that’s something we need to do. The question becomes that y’all have given me on a
regular basis is there are lots of great needs and if we don’t, if we continue to maintain the low
tax rate that we have if we continue to maintain other levels of services that we have we’re going
to have to continue to make hard decisions on who gets what. You know if you wanted, if this
group wants to take something out and change it over to something else that’s well within, I
mean that’s what you’re here for. But you know my recommendation is what it was and you
know I have no pride of ownership there. It’s there for your changes and I think that’s what
Commissioner Grantham and Commissioner Hatney were talking about is creating that group to
look at within these particular areas that are gifts to make sure that we’re getting the best bang
for our buck. And I think that’s a great idea. I just don’t think that’s a staff position to take. I
think that would end up being a policy position. We can provide you whatever information you
want, we can go to any depth you want to do that but if you agree that ‘x’ number of dollars will
be funded for these collective opportunities there and then help us or provide them in any way
that five or six of you think is appropriate that’s where we go. And because once again they’re
the ones that pull at your heart strings the most. They’re the ones that actually make a difference
to the quality of life in our community and you’re absolutely right. I can’t argue with you at all
other than the fact that I got ten dollars and this is the best way I thought to split it up.
Mr. Brigham: Mr. Russell, the only problem I have with that is when it gets down to it
we have to fund certain things. And I think we all realize that. And the state government
sometimes they tell us we have to fund a lawyer to keep them out of jail. They also tell us we
have to fund people to help keep them well and that’s my point. That these, while these are
outside agencies these are not agencies that we are given choices about how to spend that money.
We are being told we’ve got to spend that money in these areas.
Mr. Russell: I agree fully.
Mr. Brigham: And that’s my point. And when we get down to it as much as I want to
fund some of these organizations out here and that we don’t have to fund we’re going to have to
make tough decisions.
Mr. Russell: I don’t disagree and I have probably avoided that tough decision and put it
on your plate.
Mr. Mayor: Commissioner Hatney?
Mr. Hatney: The reason I asked why we were receiving annual financials is that
personally I don’t think it makes sense to fund a person or group that’s making 1.5, who’s budget
is 1.5 and another group who’s budget is five equal amount of money. Because their needs are
not the same so that’s why I asked the question.
Mr. Mayor: Gentlemen, do we have any more questions, concerns? Commissioner
Bowles.
Mr. Bowles: While we’re talking about reductions, Fred, we keep talking about the
inefficiencies of certain departments and going out for privatization just to take a look at it. But
we’ve been talking about that for years and my concern is we talk about it in December but then
it just goes away and we never talk about it again. And that’s my concern.
Mr. Russell: Right and I think what we’ve done this year is try to put a time line on that
particularly with the funding at the Patch. I mean it’s not something that we’re going to hide in
the budget and move forward on. It runs out in January. We need to look at that. The request to
take the balance for transit out of the fund balance as we’ve done puts us in a timeline there too.
There are other areas we need to look at and I think you know and we’ve had this discussion and
we had this argument in the past. And I think we’re at the point now where I fully agree with
you that we need to continue to make sure that we look at as much privatization as possible to
make sure we’ve got the dollars available. This year I’m very comfortable with what I’ve given
you. I’m more concerned about next year at the moment and the trends that are there. The
trends go positive my hair will quit turning gray if the trends, maybe not. But if the trends
nosedive on us we’re while we’re okay now we could be not okay and I mean that’s what
concerning me at the moment is next year again. We need to be prepared a little bit better going
into next year than we are this year. I’m a little bit more comfortable today than I think I’m
going to be next year up here.
Mr. Mayor:a motion
Okay, any more questions, concerns? Is anybody ready to make
toapprove the budget with the stipulations requested by Mr. Russell?
Mr. Bowles: So moved.
Mr. Jackson: Second.
Mr. Bowles: With Mr. Hatney’s and Mr. Grantham’s ---
Mr. Mayor: Input to establish the Committee.
Mr. Russell: That would be my understanding.
Mr. Mayor: Yes.
Mr. Grantham: Wait a minute let’s put a time on that if you don’t mind ---
Mr. Mayor: Okay.
Mr. Grantham: --- Mr. Mayor. I think the answer needs to come back by and like Mr.
Russell said these agencies are going to need some funding. We need to have some comments
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and answers by January 15or when our second meeting is in January.
Mr. Mayor: Okay. Would it be appropriate to establish the Committee today as well
within the motion?
Mr. Grantham: Let’s do that.
Mr. Mayor: Okay. Do you want to give me the authority to establish that Committee
within the motion?
Mr. Grantham: (inaudible)
Mr. Mayor: Okay. Mr. Bowles, are you okay with incorporating that into your motion?
Mr. Bowles: Yeah, that we make the two Super District Commissioners, the Mayor,
Mayor Pro Tem part of that committee.
Mr. Mayor: Okay I’ll find, I’ll put the committee together. I’m fine with that. But if
you’re including that in your motion then we will have the recommendations back by January
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15. Okay we ---
Mr. Bowles: So moved.
Mr. Mayor: We have a motion and a second. If there is no further discussion
Commissioners will now vote by the usual sign.
Mr. Mason votes No.
Motion carries 8-1.
Mr. Russell: Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen.
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Mr. Mayor: Okay, with no further business in the November 17 meeting to come before
the body we stand adjourned.
[MEETING ADJOURNED]
Lena Bonner
Clerk of Commission
CERTIFICATION:
I, Lena J. Boner, Clerk of Commission, hereby certify that the above is a true and correct copy of
the minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Augusta Richmond County Commission held on
November 17, 2009.
______________________________
Clerk of Commission