Cobb County leaders think their financial outlook is improving, but the county’s employees, who haven’t received a raise in three years, are hurting and need help, many of their managers said Thursday.
County officials meeting for their annual daylong retreat in Kennesaw debated whether the time had come to finally reward employees. In addition to the stagnant pay, county employees took five furlough days last year and have seen health care costs increase.
Chief Probate Court Judge Kelli Wolk reported that about 20 percent of her staff have left their positions, citing compensation and budget issues. Times have gotten so tough that Cobb Chairman Tim Lee noted cases where employees were taking personal days from work because they couldn’t afford gas to get them there.
Granting 3 percent merit raises for the county’s employees would cost about $4 million, finance officials said. Although there is no plan for raises in the budget, Lee and other commissioners have discussed the additional compensation. But it will come at a cost.
“We are in the service business, and our business is people,” he said, “so if the direction we take is [giving raises], that $4 million will translate to people.”
Cobb is currently walking the fiscal tightrope of the right mix of revenue and expenses, showing a slight $1.2 million deficit. But, if property tax collections exceed the 95 percent level as they traditionally do in the county, Cobb will have no deficit and a few million dollars left over.
It’s too early to tell if Cobb will see another decline in its real property valuation later this year, but finance officials have based their projections on a 2 percent drop, compared with the 5.5 percent drop last year.
The brighter forecast is a far cry from last year’s retreat, when managers were informed that the county was facing a $20 million midyear budget deficit.
To shore up finances, commissioners approved a 15.7 percent property tax increase last year. They are also awaiting a report next month from a citizens oversight committee on additional savings and best practices the county can implement.
Along those lines, Commissioners Bob Ott and JoAnn Birrell recommended expanding the oversight committee to perform additional internal audits of the county’s departments. Birrell’s goals also include establishing a networking group for female elected officials in the county, and Ott wants to implement online processes for several business license applications. Commissioner Woody Thompson recommended designating the county’s parks as tobacco-free locations, while Commissioner Helen Goreham would like to create a senior citizen safety program in the county’s Safety Village.
For Lee, a large portion of his goals for the year centered on economic development. He hopes to have a strategic plan in place for the county by the end of next month. During the retreat, Lee reiterated his support of the recently released EDGE economic development initiative, but rebuffed critics who have suggested he is controlled by the Chamber of Commerce.
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