Should DeKalb County keep its unique form of government, with a CEO in charge, or move to something similar to most other Georgia counties?
That's the question considered during the first meeting Wednesday of a committee of the DeKalb County Operations Task Force taking on the issue. The task force intends to make recommendations by the end of the year.
DeKalb County is the only county in Georgia with a CEO who leads the county’s executive branch by managing its government, alongside a county commission responsible for the approving policies and the budget.
Other counties, such as Fulton and Cobb, have a commission and an unelected county manager who manages day-to-day operations.
The CEO form of government used in DeKalb is more likely to be influenced by politics and operate less professionally than the county manager structure, said Greg Streib, a Georgia State University professor in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, during a presentation to the committee.
“The situation now gives the CEO a lot of political power,” Streib said. “It’s a values question, not a factual question of one over the other.”
Sen. Fran Millar, R-Atlanta, said the committee would be "derelict" if it didn't take a hard look at changing DeKalb's form of government.
“I’m not going to let structure go here, folks,” said Millar, a member of the committee. “We’re not going to just talk about this section or that section of the organizational act,” which is the county’s foundational document.
But DeKalb Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton, said the county manager form of government could be equally as bad as the CEO structure.
“You can have a CEO form of government that works. We have to figure out how to make it work,” said Sutton, who’s also a member of the committee.
Interim DeKalb County CEO Lee May has been leading the county for more than a year as suspended CEO Burrell Ellis faces trial in September on charges that he pressured county contractors to donate to his political campaign. Ellis has denied the allegations.
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