UPDATE: Looks like my question is even more theoretical at this point!  AJC reports “DeKalb approves budget with no tax increase”

While DeKalb residents won’t have to pay more in property taxes this year, they will see a loss in services, including the board of health, senior services and libraries. That loss could get worse.

…While the commission made deep cuts, no police officers, firefighters or sheriff’s deputies will lose their jobs, May said. The CEO had threatened that public safety employees would be laid off if a tax increase wasn’t approved.

However, the approved budget includes unpaid holidays and no take-home vehicles for employees.

Police say this will take thousands of dollars from officers’ salary, hurt morale and increase response times.

The AJC reports this morning that DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis has backed off his proposed 1.86 millage rate increase for the coming fiscal year, knocking it down to 1.08 mils, after “identifying $6.7 million more revenue, including collecting more probation fees and serving more warrants.”

Of course, if you listen to the chatter coming out of the DeKalb County Commission, they want none of that.  Since the CEO first introduced the idea of a millage rate increase a couple months ago, the commission has been adamantly against it.  Instead of a millage increase, the commission is suggesting…

…all county employees to not be paid on the remaining holidays in 2010, eliminating the majority of take-home vehicles and an early retirement program. Commissioners say they will consider layoffs if not enough employees sign up for the early retirement program.

So, what do you think the commission should do to close the $100 million budget gap?  Is the solution a combination of cuts and increases?  Or just plain ol’ budget cuts?

Doing what he does better than almost anyone out in the Atlanta news-sphere, Jim Walls of Atlanta Unfiltered digs into Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton’s past and unveils all kinds of financial weirdness.

Here’s a sampling of a few of the strange details uncovered by Walls…

• During her campaign for county commissioner, Sutton somehow managed to loan herself $69,000, even though she had a history of unpaid debts and made just $43,000 a year in the DeKalb County School system.
• While Sutton told the AJC that the root of her financial difficulties stemmed from a dispute with a contractor and her mortgage company, Walls notes that two cases Sutton brought against the aforementioned parties were dismissed by the Fulton County Court System for “lack of prosecution.”

Also, make sure you check out Walls’ excellent time-line of Sutton’s legal problems – which stretch back to 1995 – at the bottom of his article.

AJC: I hope you can use Walls’ new info to go back to the commissioner and demand some ACTUAL answers to your questions.  It also would be nice to give Walls props for his efforts with a mention AND a link!

A probe into why DeKalb Police let County Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton leave the scene of an accident after it was discovered she had four outstanding warrants, determined yesterday that three county police officers didn’t follow departmental policy.

“The policy is they should have contacted Gwinnett,” said Shelia Edwards, a spokeswoman for the county CEO. “Essentially they should have not let her go. They should have called to Gwinnett to verify the warrant is valid.”

Under department policy, Assistant Chief F. J. Kliesrath, Capt. T. S. Dedrick and Lt. C. T. Whittington received written counseling for violating department policy, since it was their first offense, Edwards said.

As for what compelled the officers to commit this offense…

Whittington decided not to notify Gwinnett and told the patrol officer to release the commissioner. His decision was based on the facts that the warrants were old, for a nonviolent offense, Sutton was not a flight risk and she “is an elected official in DeKalb County and Lt. Whittington did not want to bring any embarrassment or discredit to her,” according to Miller.

Well, at least there’s some honesty in that statement.  More than I can say for the commissioner.

UPDATE III: The only new piece of info I can find in this morning’s hard-copy iteration of this story is this…

Other DeKalb County commissioners said they were unaware of the warrants and could not comment.

UPDATE II: Weirder still!  The AJC updates the article for a third time and NOW the lawyer’s claim of identity fraud is gone.  Instead we have this statement from Sutton…

Sutton said she paid Costco the outstanding money late Thursday and her attorney had the warrants dropped.

“We paid them all the money that is due,” Sutton said. “This is just very unfortunate and embarrassing. This is a reminder that we all need to pay very close attention to your banking transactions because this could happen to anyone.”

Uh yeah, thanks for the tip.  Still no explanation as to why the Gwinnett judge recalled the warrants.  Hopefully the AJC won’t let this drop.

UPDATE: The story just got a lot weirder.  Sutton’s lawyer is now claiming identity fraud is to blame for 4 bounced checks to CostCo and the charges were cleared by a Gwinnett judge this afternoon.  How Sutton was able to prove identity fraud so quickly, we don’t know.  Also, Sutton has a bit of a history and I’m a bit unclear how she wouldn’t be aware of this issue.

After the warrants were issued last year, the Gwinnett deputies contacted Sutton via mail. They then forwarded the information to DeKalb law enforcement, which is the normal procedure when a warrant is for a suspect outside Gwinnett, Powell said.

Court records show Sutton also had previous problems with bad checks. In 1996, she pleaded no contest in Gwinnett to writing bad checks to West Building Supply in Stone Mountain.

Sutton said the 1996 charges happened after she “accidentally” overdrew her account.

Read the rest of this entry »

Budget gaps are no fun.  Once a local government starts implementing hiring freezes and proposing tax hikes, constituents immediately become more sensitive to any and all expenses.

And the AJC knows it.

Splashed across the front page of this morning’s paper, a story about the DeKalb County Commission’s recent approval of up to $101,000 to repaint and wallpaper government buildings.

Commissioner Connie Stokes explained to the paper that the wallpapering is not just a cosmetic expense, but will replace “flood or water-damaged wallpaper.” And though the paper cites real estate agent Mark Ponzer as knowing “that some wallpapering can be put on hold”, no specific examples are provided to refute Stokes claim.

However, the commission did not respond to questions about why any of the county’s 8,000 employees could do the work, instead of contracting the work out.

The common thread through the two of the three AJC articles on last night’s DeKalb County Commission meeting?  No new taxes!

Though MARTA is a stated top goal for the commission this year, and they support the proposed 10-county penny tax for the struggling public transportation system, they can’t currently get behind the bill because it asks Fulton and DeKalb to put up a second penny in sales tax.

CEO Burrell Ellis explains…

“We’ve got other pressing needs in our infrastructure and don’t want to be saddled with another penny,” Ellis told legislators.

That money is needed for roads, public safety, parks and other county services, he said.

And if the state were to impose the extra penny, commissioners stated they were ready to ask for a referendum to rescind the current penny tax.

Read the rest of this entry »

About a week ago, Katy documented her recent troubles with DeKalb’s low-flow toilet rebate over on her Decatur blog “A Life Fulfilled”.

After submitting rebates for the two new, low-flow flush toilets her husband installed in preparation to sell their home, they received a letter from DeKalb County informing them that their application couldn’t be processed because the program had run out of money.

Understandable, right?  Even the best toilet rebate programs sometimes find themselves without a penny to their name.  However, Katy’s major complaint was that all the instructions and info about submitting a rebate and receiving your refund within 60 days, was still sitting pretty on DeKalb County’s website.

A call to the county didn’t ease their mounting toilet-rage.  Her husband’s inquiries about why info was still posted if the program was out of money were expertly returned with DeKalb’s infamous “I’m sorry, but…”s and little else.

According to Katy, the County never took the info that stated refunds would be received within 60 days.

But all is not lost for Katy.  This past Tuesday, DeKalb’s County Commission came to her rescue, replenishing the toilet rebate program with funds once again…

H20. Budget Amendment to the Annual Funding Provided for the Toilet Rebate Program for 2009 (Assigned to the Budget, Finance & Audit Committee – recommended approval) – APPROVED

Jeff Rader’s Commission Office Coordinator, Caroline Enloe, confirms…

Due to the overwhelming response to the rebate program, the funding that was appropriated was exhausted sooner than anticipated. At yesterday’s Board of Commissioners meeting there was a vote to approve additional funding of $75,000 for the toilet rebate program for 2009. These funds are to cover pending requests and new applications through 2009 that meet the criteria for the low flow toilet rebate program. If you made a request and it was returned for lack of funding, you should now be able to request the rebate. I believe pending requests do not need to reapply, but I suggest you call the number for the toilet rebate program 770-270-6243 to confirm.

All is right with the world.

From the Dunwoody Crier [via Political Insider]…

The DeKalb County Commission finally dropped its last-ditch lawsuit against the incorporation of the city of Dunwoody last week.  CEO Burrell Ellis applauded the decision, while commissioners basically admitted that the sole reason for the lawsuit was the loss of tax revenue from the area around Perimeter Mall.

An honest, if not legally defensible argument.

Speaking of indefensible arguments, here’s a quote from the article that gives this Decatur resident a ridiculous idea…

With the inclusion of the Perimeter Center area, Dunwoody has a 40 percent commercial base, the same as the county as a whole. If the Perimeter Center was excluded, Dunwoody would be “grossly disproportionate” with residential areas and minimal commercial property. [Dunwoody City Attorney Brian] Anderson said this would be “fundamentally unfair.”

New lawsuit!  Decatur vs. DeKalb County.   “With commercial property making up only 15% of Decatur’s tax digest, we, the residents of Decatur, find this fundamentally unfair.  Give us more.  We need the money.”

I guess we would be naive to think the county would take all these annexation attempts lying down.

As Cranky (“Vote Cranky!”) recently pointed out in a comment, the DeKalb County Commission recently voted on a resolution that expresses “support for restraints on annexations that are done not to provide new services to an under-serviced area, but simply to increase a municipal tax base and legislation to allow property owners to de-annex themselves from municipalities.”    The full three page resolution can be read here (pdf).

Assuming that the commission voted in favor of the resolution (still seeking confirmation of this), it will head to the DeKalb County Delegation to the Georgia General Assembly.

Obviously, this request is being made in reaction to all the recent annexation attempts being made by DeKalb cities.  Our mayor hasn’t been shy in saying that the main reason to consider annexation is increasing the commercial tax base.

But all this resolution seems to urge is adding a layer of red tape into the annexation process.  Instead of allowing the directly-affected constituents of a community to decide whether they want to accept the annexation of a city, the county seems to be urging that someone else should make the decision about whether an annexation attempt is valid.

But who will make this decision?  A judge?  How does a city prove that its not out to increase your tax base?  How bad do DeKalb County services have to be to be judged as “under-servicing” their constituents?

Welcome to the next chapter in the city/county battle for our property taxes!

Take a gander of this sample ballot for the November 4th elections.

Five pages long! Along with McCain/Obama and Chambliss/Martin, there are enough elected official positions up for grabs to fill an entire four pages/screens, though many are running unopposed. (Hmm…how will I ever chose who should get the Board of Ed seat in Section 2, let alone Section 8!) As David in Atlanta points out in the comments, I seem to have ignored that most of the first few pages are a collective list of all local senators and reps across the state. Still, I think the post title still applies. There’s still much to consider.

But the final page is where all the really interesting local stuff is located. That’s where you’ll find all of the strangely worded constitutional amendments, referendums and special elections. As the AJC points out on its front page this morning, the most relevant local issue is the one that could potentially rein in the power of the DeKalb CEO, who currently presides over all commission meetings and sets the agenda. But just from seeing it on the ballot, I’m sure some folks will have no clue that’s exactly what it will do. Here’s the wording…

“Shall the act be approved which provides for the presiding officer to preside over meetings of the DeKalb County Commission and for the commission to establish its own agenda for such meetings?”

If you think that DeKalb needs to be run a little more like a republic and a bit less like a pseudo-monarchy, you’ll want to vote “yes” for this one. All members of the current commission support the measure (big surprise!), including incoming CEO Burrell Ellis (real surprise!), according to the AJC article.

Perhaps next time we’ll address proposed constitutional amendment #2 (which really should be called the Beltline project resolution), regarding school districts use of tax funds for redevelopment purposes. What fun!