Just a few days after seeing the proposed fiscal year 2018 Cobb County budget for the first time, commissioner Bob Ott briefed East Cobb constituents on the numbers Thursday night and offered some suggestions that could punctuate budget discussions over the next few weeks.
At a packed town hall meeting in the community room of the East Cobb Library, Ott outlined the $890 million spending plan proposed by commission chairman Mike Boyce, including using $21.5 million in one-time reserve funding.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners will hold the first of two public hearings on the budget on Tuesday before approval on Sept. 12. That’s not much time to absorb a proposed spending package that’s 3.79 percent higher than the FY 2017 budget, and only weeks after a heated battle over the property tax millage rate.
The budget document also was released this week [there’s a downloadable PDF here] as Cobb homeowners were mailed their property tax bills for 2017. As Ott reminded them, “the tax bill you just got is to pay for [the last fiscal] year.”
The proposed budget is based on the current millage rate established by commissioners last month. Ott and fellow East Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell prevailed in their refusal to raise the millage rate by 0.13, as Boyce had wanted.
The inclusion of the proposed reserve funding to help balance the budget is a dramatic one. A total of $10.4 million would come from the reserve for a county employees pay and classification implementation study; $5.7 million would come from the Title Ad Valorem Tax Reserve; and the $5.3 million would come from the county economic development contingency.
“The board has to decide what are the critical needs,” Ott said. “The bottom line is, it’s your money.”
Specifically regarding the reserve money, Ott, an ardent opponent of tax increases, repeated himself: “It is my belief that it’s your money,” and that there’s “no reason” for it to remain unspent and raise taxes instead.
Those points brought about a series of questions citizens asked Ott about cutting services. Among the initial cost-saving options Ott said he is considering is moving some functions at the East Cobb Government Service Center (which houses the county property tax payment and water payment offices) to the East Cobb Library, which he said would save around $200,000 a year.
In briefing citizens on the progress of the new Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center (East Cobb News post here), Ott said the $10 million project adjacent to the existing East Marietta Library has prompted Birrell to propose closing the East Cobb Library altogether.
Some residents in the room gasped when Ott said that “she has been relentless about it.”
In a brief interview Wednesday with East Cobb News, Birrell didn’t offer any specifics on her budget ideas, but did say the following:
“We have to revisit some non-essential services. I love my parks, and I love my libraries, but when you need 60 additional police officers [as recommended in a Cobb police staffing report issued in May], something has to go.”
(We’ll be following up with Birrell about the East Cobb Library and will post her response when we get it.)
Ott concurred that “if you’re not talking public safety, then it needs to be looked at.”
But at his town hall, he said the East Cobb Library is the second-busiest branch in the Cobb County Public Library System. According to recent figures, East Cobb’s circulation of 157,000 materials thus far in 2017 trails only the Mountain View Regional Library, also in East Cobb (175,000 volumes).
Ott said there is a possibility of closing “an underperforming branch” elsewhere in his district, which includes the Smyrna-Vinings-Cumberland area, but did not identify that location. He said that closure would save $200,000 a year.
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In a non-budget matter of great interest in the community, Ott said the 6.1-mile East Cobb Pipeline project is inching its way to completion, with only 289 feet of pipeline still to be installed.
Ott said that should be finished between now and Aug. 26, followed by a temporary repaving expected to be completed by Labor Day.
A more permanent paving project similar to the completed resurfacing on Terrell Mill Road should be done “some time before the end of the year,” he said.
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Also in attendance at the town hall on Thursday were State. Rep. Sharon Cooper and State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb, and Cobb Board of Education member Scott Sweeney. U.S. Rep. Karen Handel also addressed the town hall audience about health care, the Charlottesville violence and other topics, and we’ll be posting a separate story about that over the weekend.
