As a 30-year Fulton County resident, I’ve shared my neighbors’ frustration with an unwieldy county government lacking competence on critical services only it can perform — and that nearby counties perform well.
No wonder residents voted overwhelmingly to create the cities of Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills. The result: better service levels at lesser cost.
These changes bear a message for all Georgians: Bold, thoughtful change and a strong stomach can fix vexing problems in our communities.
Alas, Fulton elections, jails and other services marginalize citizens’ voices – and provide marginal services at staggeringly disproportionate costs.
Since Fulton is our capital county and home to 10 percent of Georgia’s population, its failures also disproportionately affect the entire metro Atlanta region.
To rein in out-of-control spending and give homeowners tax relief, the Georgia House recently gave two-thirds approval to a higher homestead exemption, legislation I crafted. This is not a new idea. The legislation I authored would essentially have the same effect as a 2008 bill introduced and widely supported by House Democrats.
Five of seven county commissioners have protested that a modest display of fiscal responsibility will necessitate cuts in Grady Memorial Hospital funding. The facts simply don’t support that conclusion.
Fulton spends 121 percent more per capita than neighboring, similarly sized Gwinnett County and 68 percent more than Cobb County, excluding expenditures on Grady and MARTA. After the homestead exemption is fully phased in, Fulton would still spend 100 percent more per capita than Gwinnett — again, excluding Grady’s cost.
The answer isn’t to cut Grady’s funding. The answer is to cut the waste that has pervaded nearly every other Fulton service.
A 2009 joint study by University of Georgia and Georgia State University showed Fulton grossly exceeded expenditures of comparable counties in almost every service. Some examples:
• Fulton commissioners spent $2,211 per Child Protective Service investigation in DFACS, on average. Cobb and Gwinnett spent $148 per investigation.
• Fulton spent roughly double that of Cobb and Gwinnett administering each parcel in the tax assessor’s and tax commissioner’s offices.
• Its purchasing department costs were more than double those of Cobb and Gwinnett.
Little has changed since then. Today, Fulton spends 66 and 158 percent more per capita on library staffing than Gwinnett and Cobb, respectively, despite lower library materials circulation than both counties. Each commissioner enjoys a $400,000 budget for his personal office and staff, three times that of Cobb and Gwinnett. And last year, Fulton spent $840,000 on contract and in-house lobbyists.
Yet a constitutionally required service, the county jail, lacked 1,300 secure cell door locks for a decade. The locks are finally being replaced, but long after warnings from three consecutive sheriffs. Compliance costs exceeded $100 million for court-ordered federal oversight of dangerous jail conditions.
Last November, mishandled elections led to an investigation by Secretary of State Brian Kemp and an historic number of provisional ballots cast due to elections staff errors.
If approved by voters, the homestead exemption increase would be phased in over three years beginning in 2015, giving Fulton plenty of time to figure out how the rest of Georgia delivers better services at reasonable costs.
A dozen other reform bills are in process to improve Fulton through changes that can only be accomplished legislatively, such as modernizing MARTA, increasing the threshold required to raise property taxes, and reforming the courts and elections board. Others would end the tax commissioner’s built-in incentive to pad his yearly compensation to $350,000, implement a performance-based employee system, and create six commission districts closer to the people and one countywide chairman.
My message to Fulton commissioners: Stop scaremongering, cut the waste, and improve the constitutionally required services that residents can’t get elsewhere. And quit treating Grady like the proverbial whipping boy.
