Sandy Springs officials get defensive if it's suggested the city has cut its budget.
Though the 2012 budget the City Council passed earlier this week is around $7.2 million less than the 2011 budget, there are no service cuts, officials said.
“We’re spending less money, but we didn’t cut anything from the budget,” Councilwoman Dianne Fries said. “The people of Sandy Springs will still get everything they’ve always gotten.”
City officials are still expecting a revenue decrease in the neighborhood of $5 million, but they said switching from CH2M Hill as the provider of most city services provided big savings. In fact, that may be the game-changer in the fiscal year 2012 budget. City officials said they saved around $7 million by allowing companies to bid on separate services instead of all of them being put together.
“It could have gotten interesting if we’d stayed with the original format,” Fries said. “But dividing the contracts up has been good for the city financially.”
“Due to the savings realized from the re-bid of the city's general government services, Sandy Springs was not faced with making significant budget cuts," City Manager John McDonough said. “For fiscal year 2012, the proposed budget includes a significant allocation to capital improvements that is possible due in part to the savings realized through the competitive process.”
Among the capital projects planned for the new fiscal year, which begins July 1, are a number of road widenings and improvements to the traffic management system. The city also is planning to spend $2.5 million on stormwater maintenance and another $2.5 million on paving and resurfacing city streets.
If the lack of comment at two public hearings on the budget is any indication, it seems Sandy Springs residents are generally pleased with the council’s fiscal decisions.
“I don’t have an issue with the budget,” resident Jim Garrison said. “I just hope to see a continued focus on traffic and traffic calming. That is a major issue for many of us in Sandy Springs.”
Kelly Huggins, a business owner and city resident, said he is pleased services don't have to be cut this year.
"I really enjoy the level of responsiveness to issues here in the city," he said. "From public works to the police, things get handled rather quickly, and I don't want to see that change."
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