DeKalb County will experience a $25 million shortfall in its budget because of declining property values, the county’s chief executive said Monday in a news conference.
The decline in assessed property values will be closer to 10 percent, not the 4 percent that was factored into the budget, DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis told several media outlets.
"Increasing costs and decreasing revenues have created a cash flow problem for the county,” he said. And because of this, he and other officials expect Moody’s, a global bond rating agency, to downgrade the county’s credit rating in the near future.
“This can be corrected, if we take the appropriate, swift action,” Ellis said. “If we do that, I believe both agencies will restore our credit rating.”
Earlier this year, Standard & Poor’s downgraded and withdrew its rating on a handful of the county’s bonds. Ellis said the county has been in communication with both agencies and is working with the Board of Commissioners to reach a solution.
Ellis said he expects the board to increase the millage rate when it makes mid-year budget adjustments, but Commissioner Lee May, chairman of the board’s budget and finance committee, doesn’t have that same expectation.
“I told them we would be looking at everything, both cutting expenditures and the possibility of raising taxes, but I was not definitive about the exact solution,” he said.
May said there are still options before the budget committee, which hasn’t made a recommendation to the full commission.
"But the board's solution will address the county's liquidity problem," May said.
Ellis said he is confident the board will do what needs to be done.
“But time is of the essence and we must act now,” he said.
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