A sputtering economy. Slumping revenue. Demands for more and better services.
The challenges facing Gwinnett County as it prepares its 2011 budget are daunting. Now add another: the man responsible for proposing the budget resigned last week.
County administrators have been crunching numbers for weeks. But it falls to the county commission chairman to take the wish lists of various departments and propose a final budget.
Chairman Charles Bannister resigned Oct. 8 after appearing before a special grand jury investigating county land deals. He was scheduled to deliver a preliminary budget to the county commission Nov. 16.
Now the remaining four commission members will cobble together a budget, according to vice chairwoman Shirley Lasseter, who’s filling in for Bannister.
“I think this needs to be a team effort this year because the chairman’s gone,” Lasseter said.
The team faces some difficult decisions. Bannister’s resignation came on the third and final day of public briefings on the 2011 budget. At those briefings, several departments requested significant expansions. Among them:
- The police department asked for 50 new officers to make progress on long-term staffing goals. The price tag: nearly $4.6 million.
- The sheriff's department requested 30 new deputies and 5 sergeants to open vacant units at the county jail. The cost: $2.4 million.
- The fire department asked for 42 more employees to staff a new station at Gwinnett College. The cost: $3 million.
The commission won’t approve a final budget until January. But already commissioners are signaling that department heads aren’t likely to get everything they want.
“What folks say they need and what they can deal with are two different things,” said Commissioner Mike Beaudreau.
It won’t be the first time commissioners face touch budget decisions.
Last year they eliminated nearly 300 jobs, delayed construction projects and cut other costs in an effort to shore up the budget.
In December commissioners voted to raise the county property tax rate by 2.28 mils, or 21 percent. It was the county’s first tax rate increase in 13 years and added $160 to the tax on a $200,000 home. Many voters were furious.
In August commissioners used $18 million from that tax increase to cover a deficit in this year’s $486 million general fund budget, which covers most of the cost of law enforcement, the judicial system and many other services.
Because of declining revenue, next year’s budget already is $31 million in the hole. But Lasseter does not seem inclined to support another tax hike this year.
“I’m going into this with the idea that I do not want to do that, to do whatever we can possibly do to just maintain and just get through this year,” she said.
Lasseter envisions a public meeting – perhaps on a Saturday – in which commissioners begin to hash out a budget.
“Between now and the end of the year that’s the most important thing we’ve got to do,” she said.
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