Lee May’s agenda
Delay of the trial of suspended DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis has given Interim CEO Lee May significant sway over the county’s budget and legislative agenda — which could mean dramatic changes for the county down the road.
First up, May’s 2014 budget priorities: Cutting 5 percent of spending from the $560 million budget. Much of the $28 million would be funneled into raises and additional hiring of police and firefighters, with smaller amounts going toward other employee raises and building an economic development plan.
The 2014 legislative agenda is expected to include requests for a public vote on eliminating the CEO form of government and making other changes to shrink government. The county also supports creating "annexation zones" that, along with new cities, would reduce the number of people who rely on DeKalb for daily government services.
May is working with the county commission on the budget recommendation and legislative wish list, both of which will be finalized later this year. He plans to reach out to leaders of cities and would-be cities in the county in September, to discuss future city borders.
Just before DeKalb County government managers began packing for picnics and beach trips last week, interim CEO Lee May sent word: Each department is to cut 5 percent from its current-year spending for the 2014 budget.
DeKalb, like other metro Atlanta governments, has had to shave spending for years as the recession battered tax revenues. But May’s memo, which would lop off about $28 million, is about more than another year of government belt-tightening.
With the trial of suspended CEO Burrell Ellis delayed indefinitely, May is pouncing on a window of opportunity to lay the groundwork for spending and structural changes likely to shrink the size and scope of Georgia’s third-largest county.
In the short-term, it should mean residents see more officers patrolling DeKalb streets, and an economic development plan aimed at drawing in private-sector partners.
Down the road, the landscape is likely to include larger existing cities and shiny new ones offering services that DeKalb no longer handles.
“All that is happening now, I think, speaks to the need to have a much higher conversation about the future of DeKalb,” May said in an exclusive interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We have to be willing to have the tough conversations about what we let go or do less of, to fund our priorities.”
Ellis cut DeKalb’s budget $76 million between 2008 and this year but also proposed several tax increases to continue providing everything from police protection to senior centers for more than 700,000 residents.
As a commissioner, May voted against the 26 percent jump in the tax rate in 2011. He has long argued the county should outsource or eliminate some services to save money.
Sitting in the county’s top job indefinitely awards May two tools to make those ideas a reality: the 2014 budget, to be submitted in December, and a wish list of structural changes the county legislative delegation will take up in January.
May and his former colleagues on the county commission have agreed on a budget framework that will redirect the savings to boost the pay, and possibly the number, of county police and firefighters. Smaller raises also are on the table for other county workers.
The 2014 spending plan, though, is to include budget projections for at least three years. That work will require persuading state lawmakers, after years of debate, to hold a public vote on eliminating the CEO post and reshaping the form of county government.
Even more challenging, the new structure of government would serve fewer people based on another proposal, not yet defined, for DeKalb to turn over unincorporated parts of the county to be annexed into existing cities or formed into new municipalities.
Zoning issues are one of the chief complaints from those considering whether to form up to four new cities in the county. If DeKalb no longer handles those matters, it could save millions of taxpayer dollars and give those residents the local control they want.
That money could be cut from the budget altogether or funneled to those services demanded by residents who live outside the would-be cities, such as code enforcement.
“We never needed a CEO in this county,” Robert Blackman, president of the Meadows Homeowners Association near Stone Mountain, said. “We need more boots on the ground.”
Even with such resident support, changing the existing setup will probably be an uphill battle. State Rep. Howard Mosby, the Democrat who heads DeKalb’s delegation, has for years pledged his support to a CEO system.
The majority of other lawmakers from DeKalb have agreed and also have pushed back on the cityhood movement they say cannibalizes property revenues that would otherwise fund county services.
Lawmakers have signaled a willingness to at least consider changes to the government structure in the coming session, though.
And, for the first time, Democrats are behind the would-be cities of Briarcliff, Tucker and Stonecrest. The fourth potential city, Lakeside, has the support of the county’s Republicans.
That means residents and politicians from all corners of the county, and from every political stripe, are at least talking about DeKalb’s future.
The one thing they can agree on: avoiding the political and money battles they’ve watched in neighboring Fulton, where communities formed new cities at a rapid clip but taxpayers did not see a corresponding cut in county spending.
“DeKalb County is going to have to work on a political compromise that can put all of our residents on more equal footing,” said state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, a Democrat who has filed one of the new-city placeholder bills. “The more full a discussion we have, the more we can plan, together.”
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