Future of Budget, Oversight Committee Spelled Out

The chairman of the Cobb County commissioners laid out plans Tuesday to find ways to tighten the county’s belt and move forward with adjusting the current budget.

 Finance officials are predicting Cobb could end the fiscal year in September with a $28 million shortfall if nothing changes.

On March 22, county staff will present the board of commissioners with several options to make up the shortfall before the fiscal year ends.

The commissioners will then need to agree on a strategy moving forward so that a revised budget for the remainder of this year can be approved by April 12, Commission Chairman Tim Lee said.

Lee also announced plans to move forward with a citizens oversight committee that will establish priorities for county-provided services, evaluate budget options and provide a list of recommendations to long-term issues for the 2012 and 2013 budgets.

Lee listed potential savings areas to be looked into by the commissioners including the county’s health plan, staff structure and the privatization of services.

“We need to redefine ourselves as a government,” Lee said.

The commissioners were supposed to receive an update Tuesday from a citizens oversight committee established in December by a resolution from commissioners wanting a review of the county’s spending and management.

However, the panel has not been formed yet.

In January, Lee said a facilitator from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia would help organize the group.

But a consensus couldn’t be reached from the commissioners about the committee, so the UGA group told Lee they couldn’t move forward.

Lee is now recommending that each board member appoint two members to the committee, with him appointing three members. The committee members would be named by the March 22 meeting.

The committee would report back to the commissioners at a June 28 meeting. Lee said the commissioners should have their findings and recommendations by then as well.

Commissioner Bob Ott, who only agreed to put an additional special purpose local option sales tax, or SPLOST, to voters this month if the oversight committee was formed in December, said the goals of the committee that Lee laid out Tuesday are different from the goals in the resolution.

If approved by voters March 15, the special four-year tax would begin Jan. 1, 2012, just as the current one ends. The new one-cent on the dollar tax is projected to generate $492 million for parks, recreation and transportation maintenance projects.

The oversight committee resolution in December said an analysis would be done including an independent audit of county funds, and long and short-term funding options.

Ott said Tuesday that the committee now seems to be basing everything they do on information from the county, instead of any independent work.

Former commissioner, Thea Powell, who was on the board in December, said that because no committee has done any work, voters won’t have information about the county’s finances before they vote next Tuesday on the new SPLOST.

“This board has deemed this resolution not to move forward,” Powell said during Tuesday’s meeting. “Why do the rules keep changing?”

In other budget related business Tuesday, the board had been prepared to vote on hiring a new purchasing director. But instead, Lee said due to the county’s financial situation, a hiring freeze that is in place and the evaluation of various aspects of the current staffing “it’s not the right time to move forward with this hire.”

The commissioners also voted Tuesday to ramp up the fight against illegal workers by participating in the federal IMAGE program.

The ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers, allows employers to use certain tools in their hiring and verification process.

Cobb already participates in the federal E-Verify program, which runs names through a database and checks Social Security numbers and immigration information.