The panel tasked with helping Brookhaven become a city will make its recommendations on a budget, staffing and other key issues Sunday.
The newly elected council and mayor won’t have long to deliberate the proposals. Monday night, immediately after being sworn in, the elected officials will hold their first meetings and votes.
Top of the list: setting a budget, adopting a city code and making appointments to key jobs such as interim city clerk and, perhaps, interim city manager.
“We have quite a bit of work to do,” J. Max Davis, who will serve as the city’s first mayor, said Friday.
The Governor’s Commission, a five-member group appointed to help handle the nuts and bolts of creating the city, had been scheduled to give its final report Friday night.
But considering voters didn’t decide three of four councilmembers and the mayor until a runoff election on Tuesday, chairman Ben Vinson said the group needed extra time to be ready.
Sunday’s report will be the first time the commission will publicly issue its recommendation on how big of a budget the city will have, how it thinks the city should proceed with hiring vendors to provide most city services and what steps to take to hire central city staff.
Most critical to all operations will be the budget. The Carl Vinson Institute estimated the city will have $25.2 million in income but $25.1 million in expenditures, leaving very little room for overages.
Beyond the spending plan, with Brookhaven to begin operations on Dec. 17, one thing has become clear: the new city won’t have time to take on most services and will likely need to contract with DeKalb County well into 2013.
“You’ve got a long list of things that will continue with DeKalb County,” Vinson said, adding that county officials were cooperative and helpful during a recent meeting about the transition. “What’s going to happen next plays back into the final decisions the elected officials make on contracts.”
Sunday’s commission meeting begins at 6 p.m. at St. Martin’s Episcopal School on Ashford Dunwoody Road.
The swearing-in ceremony begins at 7 p.m. Monday in Lupton Auditorium at Oglethorpe University. The first city council meeting will follow at 8 p.m. in the auditorium.
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