For the second year in a row, Cobb commissioners are divided on the county budget. By a 3-2 vote, they adopted a $475 million fiscal year 2020 general fund spending plan on Tuesday that holds the line on the millage rate but takes in $21 million more in revenue.
The budget includes a pay raise for county employees (and a bigger one for many public safety employees), eliminates non-profit spending and reduces transfer revenues from the county water department.
(Here’s the budget proposal that was largely unchanged upon adoption.)
While East Cobb’s two commissioners voted against last year’s budget, they split their votes this time around. Bob Ott of District 2 once again voted against the new budget, referring to long-term problems over public safety staffing, pensions and transportation in prepared remarks.
“I am deeply concerned that nothing is being done to address these issues,” Ott said. “I cannot in good conscience vote for this budget.”
Last year, he was joined by District 3’s JoAnn Birrell, who said she couldn’t support the FY 2019 budget because the property tax hike of 1.7 mills didn’t come with any significant spending cuts.
This year, she said, there have been some cuts. “Overall, this is a good budget,” she said in her prepared comments before the vote. “It’s not a perfect budget.”
Birrell said that public safety “is our number one priority and it’s high time we do something about it.”
She voted for budget adoption this year with commissioner Lisa Cupid of South Cobb and chairman Mike Boyce of East Cobb, who said he was happy with what he called a compromise budget.
The extra revenue is due to growth in the Cobb tax digest, projected to be a record $39 billion for 2019.
County employees who get favorable performance reviews will be getting a four-percent pay increase. Likewise, police officers, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies—who received a one-time bonus this summer to address what many have called a “crisis” in public safety staffing, morale and retention issues—will be getting a seven-percent raise.
Membership fees to use county senior centers—a hot topic in last year’s budget—have been eliminated. An additional $400,000 for the public library system will be used to meet what county spokesman Ross Cavitt said were “critical needs,” including its materials collections.
“This year was all about increased compensation for public safety, and this budget delivers it,” Boyce said moments before calling the question.
Also voting against the budget was Keli Gambrill, newly elected from North Cobb, who questioned the amount of contingency funds in the budget, among other concerns. In his comments, Ott urged county budget officials to indicate the original source of spending when bringing items up for contingency funding.
More emphatically, he said that 95 percent of Cobb DOT funding comes from SPLOST receipts, and worries about how “devastating” it would be for road maintenance and repair should a sales-tax referendum ever be defeated. The next likely SPLOST vote could take place in 2020.
“Opening the libraries an extra day does no good” if the roads patrons depend on to get there are in disrepair, Ott said.
He also noted that county pension obligations continue to mount. In 1997, 95 percent of those obligations were funded, but that figure is only 52 percent today.
While he supports better pay for public safety, Ott also is concerned this year’s seven-percent raise may make it difficult to implement a step-and-grade compensation system that could result next year.
“I want to see that this is going to be worked on starting tomorrow,” Ott said.
Although board members may appear to be on seemingly different tracks about the budget, Boyce praised his colleagues, including those who voted against the budget.
“This board is honest to a fault,” he said before the vote. “How much is that of value to you?”
The commissioners also set the millage rates for the various county budget funds:
- General Fund, 8.46 mills;
- Fire Fund, 2.86 mills;
- Debt Service (Bond Fund), 0.13 mills;
- Cumberland Special Services District II, 2.45 mills;
- Six Flags Special Service District, 3.50 mills.
The FY 2020 budget takes effect Oct. 1.
Related stories
- Political newcomer running for Cobb commission District 2
- Cobb school board keeps property tax rate at 18.9 mills
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