DeKalb running out of time to make budget cuts

By April Hunt

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The window is rapidly closing for DeKalb County to make tough service or personnel cuts before a midyear budget review this summer.

Thursday, the county commission’s budget committee held its second daylong hearing, asking department heads how they would operate with a 5 percent and a 10 percent reduction to their spending.

Most departments instead argued for either more money or defended a need to hold steady. And for the second time, all three members of the budget committee did not attend all of the presentations.

That leaves a fuzzy picture for potential reductions with less than three weeks left for the commission to reduce Chief Executive Burrell Ellis’ proposed $547 million budget. That could mean the board is running out of time to make major service cuts or layoffs  – at least until June.

“I’d love to see us adjust these revenue numbers down, but I don’t see that we have time,” said Commissioner Lee May, chairman of the budget committee. “You still can’t get away from the fact we either cut people or cut services.”

Departments that complied with how they could cut have laid out painful realities of what more cuts could mean for residents.

The fire department, for instance, would decommission its crash truck at the Peachtree-DeKalb Airport, eliminating eight firefighters, plus move its call-status managers to the 911 center, to even come close to cutting another 5 percent, or $2.8 million, from its budget.

The library system would need to close the equivalent of the new Stonecrest library branch, eliminate 14 jobs, and further reduce all branch operating hours to slice $600,000 from its already-reduced spending.

Whether to make those cuts will lie with the commission, which unlike other metro counties does not make all budget decisions but works from a proposed spending plan from the CEO.

That divided set-up has created friction for years. On the heels of last summer’s 26 percent hike in the tax rate, though, this year was supposed to be different.

For the first time in two years, Ellis did not propose a tax increase in 2012. His offering instead bumped spending by $7 million mostly by creating new fees such as for court services and utility work. The budget also projects property values will dip 5 percent, after falling 12 percent last year.

Commissioners decried those assumptions as too rosy and made the call for department heads to explain how they could cut. They also asked the county finance department to cut Ellis’ budget by $4 million – the total money the new fees will bring in, but only if the state Legislature approves them.

Finance director Joel Gottlieb said Ellis stands by his projections, so he won’t cut that $4 million. He will make some departmental adjustments that could include adding items, such as a phase-in plan for new airpacks for county firefighters, a $2.4 million cost that is not included in Ellis’ 2012 proposal.

“We are listening," Gottlieb said. “But not every department needs cut and we can’t match everybody’s need.”

Gottlieb said he will have a budget amendment, to make small changes, to the commission sometime next week.

Meanwhile, the budget committee plans a final day departmental hearings next Thursday and hopes to have a recommended budget by Feb. 23.

The full commission is scheduled to vote on the budget on Feb. 28 and will revisit 2012 spending in June.