Peachtree Corners has unveiled its first proposed annual budget, a nearly $3 million spending plan that’s more than three times larger what residents were promised during the fight to incorporate the area.
The new city's suggested budget for Fiscal Year 2013 (July 1 to June 30, 2013) comes to about $2.7 million, including $1.7 million in projected property taxes. The City Council will hold a public hearing on the budget Tuesday night and then vote whether to adopt it June 26.
The dollar figure has come as a surprise to local leaders and many residents. In a 2010 fiscal analysis of the area, the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia said the city could be financially viable with a projected annual budget of $760,917.
Local watchdogs who led an aggressive campaign against incorporation said the budget is a prime example of why they didn’t want a new city.
"For now, we're passing on the opportunity to say, ‘I told you so,'" said Bob Martell, a longtime area resident and president of local watchdog group Peachtree Corners Ballot Committee. "But it seems a good bet that if this budget had been proposed last September, the cityhood vote in November would have turned out very different."
Peachtree Corners is the sixth new city created in metro Atlanta since 2005 -- following Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton, Chattahoochee Hills and Dunwoody -- and is the second outside Fulton County. It is poised to become the largest of Gwinnett's 16 municipalities, with an estimated 34,000 residents between Norcross and Berkeley Lake when it starts operations July 1.
City leaders have been building a new government from scratch since taking office in April. At Thursday''s council meeting, they addressed issues ranging from signing a new lease for city offices in nearby Technology Park, getting an update on the search for city manager and approving an advertised millage rate of 1.0 mills for an upcoming public hearing.
But they'll also need to allay concerns of cityhood opponents and heal divisions within the community following the closest incorporation vote in metro Atlanta in the past six years. Other referendums were approved by at least 81 percent of the vote; Peachtree Corners claimed just 57 percent.
The council spent more than an hour going over the proposed budget, with Post 2 councilman Jay Lowe asking pointed questions about potentially spending $100,000 for a call center. City consultant John Kachmar, city manager of Johns Creek, said he would have recommended not paying for a call center until the city has a better grasp of the need and call volume.
But Mayor Mike Mason said he pushed for answering services because residents had previously indicated to him that they "wanted somebody to be there at a specific location to talk with. I heard you loud and clear."
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