Budget trimmed; one mil hike now expected

FISCAL YEAR 2023.2024 PROPOSED BUDGETS WITH BOC ADJUSTMENTS Current FY 22-23 Revenue and Expenditures Report

by Sami Mastrario

Tensions were high when County Commissioners Brad Calhoun and Dana Whiddon faced concerned Turner County citizens at the latest budget hearing meeting held on Thursday, June 15 at the Turner County Agricultural Center. 

Since the meeting is not a called meeting but instead a public hearing, the other three County Commissioners were not required to be present. It was standing room only as well as several citizens sitting in the hallway due to lack of space in the room.

Commission members present: Dana Whiddon, Brad Calhoun (Chair). Also present: Cherysh Green-Caldwell (County Manager)

Last week, The Wiregrass Farmer reported that a 4 mil hike in taxes would be required to cover the proposed 2023-2024 budget the county department heads had presented to the commissioners for the next fiscal year. After Wednesday’s budget hearing, all reports were saying that they balanced the budget with no need to raise taxes or cut services, but rather pull money from reserves and money from the Jail Fund. What changed in the 24 hours? That was discussed in exhaustive detail at the beginning of Thursday’s budget hearing.

The meat of the issue comes down to the amount of money they are pulling from reserves versus the amount of money they are pulling from the Jail Fund. 

When the commissioners all left with a balanced budget on Wednesday evening, the proposed idea was to pull money from reserves as well as use the full jail fund of $500,000. Commissioner Whiddon went home and continued to review the numbers presented at Wednesday’s meeting. After review, she determined she was not satisfied with pulling as much money from reserves because the County has bled that well almost dry. She called the county manager, Mrs. Cherysh Green-Caldwell early the next morning to express her and Commissioner Burgess’s reservations and asked that Mrs. Green-Caldwell reevaluate the budget again and reach out to Chairman Calhoun.

At Thursday’s budget hearing, a new budget was presented with a 1 mil tax increase that still has Mrs. Whiddon concerned.

Commissioner Whiddon: Just want to make sure that I understand. So this is not the budget that we walked out with last night? If this budget was not presented and worked through with the whole board, then this is not a valid budget. We can’t present it because we haven’t had an open board discussion.

Commissioner Calhoun: We went through every budget for the last few weeks.

Commissioner Whiddon: But we are modifying budgets and we are adding a tax increase. We didn’t talk about that last night.

Commissioner Calhoun: We most certainly talked about a tax increase, They talked about a 4 mil tax increase, a 2 mil tax increase.

Commissioner Whiddon: But the budget last night did not include a tax increase.

Commissioner Calhoun: It did not. It did not include a tax increase because you and Joe [Commissioner Burgess] were not going to vote to accept that. To only take $250,000. Y’all decided y’all wanted $500,000 from the Jail Fund.

Commissioner Whiddon: Because we were concerned about taking $500,000 from the reserves. That is what I expressed.

Commissioner Calhoun: I get what you are concerned about. I am concerned about that.

Commissioner Calhoun: But this budget doesn’t rectify that. We are still taking $500,000 from reserves.

Commissioner Calhoun: But we are taking $250,000 from the Jail Fund. Not $500,000.

Commissioner Whiddon: But we are also raising the Jail budget by $250,000.

Commissioner Calhoun: That is correct.

Commissioner Whiddon: So now we are spending $2 million on the jail instead of $1.5 million.

Commissioner Calhoun: Whatever the math works out to.

Commissioner Whiddon: So we are not dealing with the health department. We are not making whole any of the cuts. We are not reinstating the janitorial contract. This $250,000 mil rate increase is 100% going to a budget already fully funded.That’s concerning.

Commissioner Calhoun: Is there a question?

Commissioner Whiddon: No, I am just making a statement that’s concerning that we are raising taxes to add to a budget that we fully funded.

The concerns Commissioner Dana Whiddon presents are valid. The 1 mil increase budget that was presented does not address the problem of pulling money from reserves because the anticipated new budget presented at Thursday’s budget hearing still shows having to pull $500,000 from reserves. It does show a reduction in use of the Jail Fund. The current reserves account balance as discussed at the Budget hearing on Thursday sits at roughly $1.4 million dollars. Some of that money is already “reserved” for this fiscal year. Commissioner Whiddon took the time to discuss why pulling more money from reserves is an issue when asked by audience member Cristi Brown Ellis:

Commissioner Whiddon: So what we have in our Georgia 1 fund which fluctuates a little bit but ~$1.4 million. The other part is that we have not closed out this fiscal year yet and so we have had several expenditures that we didn’t budget for that may impact that. We had the defined benefits come in and we budgeted $150,000 but it came in $424,000, so there is a gap there that is going to have to come from reserves. When we did the pay raise for $2.00/hr, we spent it based on the projection that the Sheriff might bring in $4.2 million so if that doesn’t happen, that difference will have to come out of reserves for this fiscal year. And then we had several other expenses that we made. Until the books are cleaned up, right now we are running behind, so it may reduce that $1.4 million.

Continuing after some back and forth with Cristi and Commissioner Calhoun about poor money management by the County, Commissioner Whiddon offered some more clarification:

Commissioner Whiddon: My concern is that we were still tapping $500,000 more [from reserves for fiscal year 2023-2024]. We budgeted to take $550,000 this year [for fiscal year 2022-2023]. So take $500,000 from that $1.4 million and we have $900,000. Now we are going to take $500,000 this year. You are at $400,000. That is where we are at if what we projected happens. So that is what made me concerned to call and say, I think we need to reconsider using all of that money that isn’t going to force us to take it from reserves. Because I feel like we can still be balanced, we can still not raise taxes, and that would be an answer to addressing our spending out of reserves. Obviously Mr. Calhoun didn’t agree with that and that’s fine. That is why there are 5 of us. But I think that that is the answer. Mr. Calhoun doesn’t agree and two other board members don’t agree. That is why we are here with the raising of taxes. It can be done, we just have to have the willpower to do it.

After that statement, discussion on the Jail Fund versus the Reserves fizzled out as other audience members chimed in their concerns with various aspects of the budget. Mr. Dustin Land questioned Commissioner Calhoun about the 90% increase in budget for the Sheriff’s department and Jail budget differences from 2013 to current requests. 

Dustin Land: Mr. Chairman, in 2013, the Sheriff’s budget was $972,000. Now it is $1.8 million. Why the 90% increase?

Commissioner Calhoun: You will ask him specifically.

Dustin Land: I am asking you as Chairman of the Commission. You gave him the money, why the increase?

Commissioner Calhoun: I will be glad to answer your question, you don’t have to be so aggressive.

Dustin Land: Answer the question and quit deflecting.

Commissioner Calhoun: I am not deflecting. I am saying he can give you the exact. Basically, we are on the interstate with more patrol cars. Do you have the # of the revenue that we brought in in 2013?

Dustin Land: Fines and Fees? 2 million dollars.

Commissioner Calhoun: Do you have the number through this month?

County Clerk Wilson: Through April.

County Manager Green-Caldwell: The report I ran on May the 30th, I am not sure when the data was updated, was 3,305,426.

Dustin Land: So my question is when has the Sheriff brought in $4 million. Has it ever happened before?

Commissioner Calhoun: Never. So I am so tickled that we are going to do it this year. I think Mrs. Mary Lee brought in $3,685,000 last year going from memory? Around $3,700,000. And we had only had $2,700,000 budgeted to bring in do you remember?

County Manager Green-Caldwell: 2022 anticipated was $2.7 million and actual brought in was $3.7 million.

Dustin Land: So why are we raising taxes.

Commissioner Calhoun: Because we spent.

Dustin Land: That’s the problem I am trying to get to. Y’all spent.

Commissioner Calhoun: You know why we spent? It’s because stuff has went up over the years. Everything. I don’t know what hasn’t gone up. And this year we have $3.3 million right now at 10 months. 2 months, at $330,000 anticipated per months that is going to come out to exactly $4 million.

Dustin Land: What did the sheriff promise you when you gave him $280,000.

Commissioner Calhoun: We gave him $180,000 and he promised $3.8 million.

Mary Lee Green: I got May’s [numbers]. I did May while I was in court today. To be paid to the county for the month of May is $373,482.

Commissioner Calhoun: So we are at $3.7 million right now with one month to go.

In another discussion between Mr. Land and Commissioner Calhoun, Mr. Land tried to continue to get more info from Commissioner Calhoun on why the Sheriff and Jail budget happened to be so much higher than 10 years previously.

Dustin Land: The jail budget in 2013 is $964,000 now it is $1.5 million plus the Jail Fund is $500,000, so it is now $2 million.

Commissioner Calhoun: The Jail Fund is always in there and the amount changes year to year.

Dustin Land: But I am asking you why the increase.

Commissioner Calhoun: The exact same reason, I suppose. We were paying $11/hr years ago and now they are probably making $15 or $16/hr without looking at the exact numbers, I don’t know. Uniforms cost more, vehicles cost more. I can tell you one thing that went up. It was $55,000 my first year elected and I didn’t even like it but we had to have a nurse or doctor on call at the jail. I thought that was crazy that we pay that much money for them just to be there. The new number that we got for this coming year is, well it was $165,000 but he [Sheriff Hester] negotiated it to $155,000. That is triple that amount of money that we have to do.

Dustin Land: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day, Mr. Calhoun?

Commissioner Calhoun: You can do the math.

Dustin Land: I am asking you to do the math.

Commissioner Calhoun: It’s according to what you want to add in whether we are housing the full stock or whether we are…

Dustin Land: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day?

Commissioner Calhoun: I do not know the exact number because there are multiple variables.

Dustin Land: Thank you for sharing that with all of these taxpayers.

Several other audience members made murmurs at this statement and asked similar questions about why Turner County citizens are subsidizing the cost of housing other county’s inmates. Although Commissioner Calhoun mentioned the contract and cap on how much we can charge, that answer did not prove sufficient for citizen

Tony Land: “Why don’t you address it and do something about your spending?… You need to make some changes and some drastic changes. This has been ongoing for some time and no one is addressing the real concern… So you are going to take the path of least resistance and raise it on the taxpayers of Turner County?” 

Commissioner Calhoun vehemently denied that and brought up minimum manning costs at the jail.

The rest of the meeting was a back and forth discussion with members of the audience about their displeasure in the raising of taxes. One audience member, who was a farmer and did not identify himself, tried appealing to the board that they remember the farmers who will be most affected by this tax increase since they either own or rent the largest parcels in the county:

“As a farmer, what is the #1 industry in this county? Farming. Who is the tax that is really going to affect as an industry? Farmers. We don’t own all the land but we own a lot of it. And we rent it most of the rest of it. And when their taxes go up, who has to pay it? The farmer. All I am saying is that you can’t bleed but so much as an industry before it is gone. So that is why I am asking the county to be thinking about that for a bit. In this county, who are you actually supporting? It is your #1 industry or not… I understand that everything in this world costs more today. But everyone that is in here is still here because they do know how to spend their money.”

Other community leaders and council members spoke at the meeting such as Mayor Wayne Woodruff of Sycamore, Sycamore Council Member James Galt Brown, and Sycamore Council Member Fred Eister about concerns in raising taxes for citizens on fixed incomes who may have to choose between paying their taxes or buying food or medicines.

There were also slight criticisms about lack of action in assessing properties when it should have been done several years ago and how that assessment will have to raise taxes even more causing further strain. 

Mayor Woodruff: “What I am trying to get across is that the people of this county should not have to pay a dime higher in taxes because a majority of the board are going to overspend the money… I am not here to bash any department. I am not here doing that. What I am saying is that the people that you have in this county, a lot of them are on fixed income and cannot afford this.” 

Commissioner Calhoun, rather than respond to the comment, begins to bring up the Sycamore City Council budget issues that were reported in The Wiregrass Farmer recently.

Not all of those present were against raising taxes. One audience member, Lisa Morelock, questioned more to the audience asking when it would be appropriate to raise taxes in our opinions. “After so much time, when is a tax increase allowed?” 

With the rising inflation and the increased cost of nearly everything was brought up several times throughout the meeting and are something that everyone feels at every grocery store visit or gas purchase,

Lisa Morelock: ‘I feel like y’all [the County Commissioners] have dropped the ball for the last so many years by not half a mil here or there which would have been easier.” 

Commissioner Calhoun brings up the $6 million reserves balance that was available which is why the Commissioners did not raise taxes. 

Lisa Morelock: “But you have watched that deplete… I know when it starts going down, you start doing something before it is gone.” 

Commissioner Calhoun agreed and presented his farmer logic. “And we should have. We kept thinking, hey, I am a farmer. So this is my logic. Next year is going to be a good year. And I can’t- I still think that with this… It can go back up. COVID did not help and I don’t want to be like everyone else and blame COVID but that didn’t help.”

The budget and the proposed mil rate increase brought Turner County citizens out in droves to the budget hearing meeting. 

Whether in favor or against the spending of the county and the tax rate, one thing that can be said is that an involved citizen base is always a good thing. It shows that they are paying attention to their representatives. 

The final 2023-2024 Turner County budget will be determined at the Tuesday, June 27 meeting. Now is the time to reach out to your county commissioner via phone to let them know your opinion. They represent the citizens of Turner County and your voice matters. They can be reached at (229) 567-4313 or via email contact located on the County website.

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Tensions were high when County Commissioners Brad Calhoun and Dana Whiddon faced concerned Turner County citizens at the latest budget hearing meeting held on Thursday, June 15 at the Turner County Agricultural Center.

Since the meeting is not a called meeting but instead a public hearing, the other three County Commissioners were not required to be present. It was standing room only as well as several citizens sitting in the hallway due to lack of space in the room.

Commission members present: Dana Whiddon, Brad Calhoun (Chair). Also present: Cherysh Green-Caldwell (County Manager)

Last week, The Wiregrass Farmer reported that a 4 mil hike in taxes would be required to cover the proposed 2023-2024 budget the county department heads had presented to the commissioners for the next fiscal year. After Wednesday’s budget hearing, all reports were saying that they balanced the budget with no need to raise taxes or cut services, but rather pull money from reserves and money from the Jail Fund. What changed in the 24 hours? That was discussed in exhaustive detail at the beginning of Thursday’s budget hearing.

The meat of the issue comes down to the amount of money they are pulling from reserves versus the amount of money they are pulling from the Jail Fund.

When the commissioners all left with a balanced budget on Wednesday evening, the proposed idea was to pull money from reserves as well as use the full jail fund of $500,000. Commissioner Whiddon went home and continued to review the numbers presented at Wednesday’s meeting. After review, she determined she was not satisfied with pulling as much money from reserves because the County has bled that well almost dry. She called the county manager, Mrs. Cherysh Green-Caldwell early the next morning to express her and Commissioner Burgess’s reservations and asked that Mrs. Green-Caldwell reevaluate the budget again and reach out to Chairman Calhoun.

At Thursday’s budget hearing, a new budget was presented with a 1 mil tax increase that still has Mrs. Whiddon concerned.

Commissioner Whiddon: Just want to make sure that I understand. So this is not the budget that we walked out with last night? If this budget was not presented and worked through with the whole board, then this is not a valid budget. We can’t present it because we haven’t had an open board discussion.

Commissioner Calhoun: We went through every budget for the last few weeks.

Commissioner Whiddon: But we are modifying budgets and we are adding a tax increase. We didn’t talk about that last night.

Commissioner Calhoun: We most certainly talked about a tax increase, They talked about a 4 mil tax increase, a 2 mil tax increase.

Commissioner Whiddon: But the budget last night did not include a tax increase.

Commissioner Calhoun: It did not. It did not include a tax increase because you and Joe [Commissioner Burgess] were not going to vote to accept that. To only take $250,000. Y’all decided y’all wanted $500,000 from the Jail Fund.

Commissioner Whiddon: Because we were concerned about taking $500,000 from the reserves. That is what I expressed.

Commissioner Calhoun: I get what you are concerned about. I am concerned about that.

Commissioner Calhoun: But this budget doesn’t rectify that. We are still taking $500,000 from reserves.

Commissioner Calhoun: But we are taking $250,000 from the Jail Fund. Not $500,000.

Commissioner Whiddon: But we are also raising the Jail budget by $250,000.

Commissioner Calhoun: That is correct.

Commissioner Whiddon: So now we are spending $2 million on the jail instead of $1.5 million.

Commissioner Calhoun: Whatever the math works out to.

Commissioner Whiddon: So we are not dealing with the health department. We are not making whole any of the cuts. We are not reinstating the janitorial contract. This $250,000 mil rate increase is 100% going to a budget already fully funded.That’s concerning.

Commissioner Calhoun: Is there a question?

Commissioner Whiddon: No, I am just making a statement that’s concerning that we are raising taxes to add to a budget that we fully funded.

The concerns Commissioner Dana Whiddon presents are valid. The 1 mil increase budget that was presented does not address the problem of pulling money from reserves because the anticipated new budget presented at Thursday’s budget hearing still shows having to pull $500,000 from reserves. It does show a reduction in use of the Jail Fund. The current reserves account balance as discussed at the Budget hearing on Thursday sits at roughly $1.4 million dollars. Some of that money is already “reserved” for this fiscal year. Commissioner Whiddon took the time to discuss why pulling more money from reserves is an issue when asked by audience member Cristi Brown Ellis:

Commissioner Whiddon: So what we have in our Georgia 1 fund which fluctuates a little bit but ~$1.4 million. The other part is that we have not closed out this fiscal year yet and so we have had several expenditures that we didn’t budget for that may impact that. We had the defined benefits come in and we budgeted $150,000 but it came in $424,000, so there is a gap there that is going to have to come from reserves. When we did the pay raise for $2.00/hr, we spent it based on the projection that the Sheriff might bring in $4.2 million so if that doesn’t happen, that difference will have to come out of reserves for this fiscal year. And then we had several other expenses that we made. Until the books are cleaned up, right now we are running behind, so it may reduce that $1.4 million.

Continuing after some back and forth with Cristi and Commissioner Calhoun about poor money management by the County, Commissioner Whiddon offered some more clarification:

Commissioner Whiddon: My concern is that we were still tapping $500,000 more [from reserves for fiscal year 2023-2024]. We budgeted to take $550,000 this year [for fiscal year 2022-2023]. So take $500,000 from that $1.4 million and we have $900,000. Now we are going to take $500,000 this year. You are at $400,000. That is where we are at if what we projected happens. So that is what made me concerned to call and say, I think we need to reconsider using all of that money that isn’t going to force us to take it from reserves. Because I feel like we can still be balanced, we can still not raise taxes, and that would be an answer to addressing our spending out of reserves. Obviously Mr. Calhoun didn’t agree with that and that’s fine. That is why there are 5 of us. But I think that that is the answer. Mr. Calhoun doesn’t agree and two other board members don’t agree. That is why we are here with the raising of taxes. It can be done, we just have to have the willpower to do it.

After that statement, discussion on the Jail Fund versus the Reserves fizzled out as other audience members chimed in their concerns with various aspects of the budget. Mr. Dustin Land questioned Commissioner Calhoun about the 90% increase in budget for the Sheriff’s department and Jail budget differences from 2013 to current requests.

Dustin Land: Mr. Chairman, in 2013, the Sheriff’s budget was $972,000. Now it is $1.8 million. Why the 90% increase?

Commissioner Calhoun: You will ask him specifically.

Dustin Land: I am asking you as Chairman of the Commission. You gave him the money, why the increase?

Commissioner Calhoun: I will be glad to answer your question, you don’t have to be so aggressive.

Dustin Land: Answer the question and quit deflecting.

Commissioner Calhoun: I am not deflecting. I am saying he can give you the exact. Basically, we are on the interstate with more patrol cars. Do you have the # of the revenue that we brought in in 2013?

Dustin Land: Fines and Fees? 2 million dollars.

Commissioner Calhoun: Do you have the number through this month?

County Clerk Wilson: Through April.

County Manager Green-Caldwell: The report I ran on May the 30th, I am not sure when the data was updated, was 3,305,426.

Dustin Land: So my question is when has the Sheriff brought in $4 million. Has it ever happened before?

Commissioner Calhoun: Never. So I am so tickled that we are going to do it this year. I think Mrs. Mary Lee brought in $3,685,000 last year going from memory? Around $3,700,000. And we had only had $2,700,000 budgeted to bring in do you remember?

County Manager Green-Caldwell: 2022 anticipated was $2.7 million and actual brought in was $3.7 million.

Dustin Land: So why are we raising taxes.

Commissioner Calhoun: Because we spent.

Dustin Land: That’s the problem I am trying to get to. Y’all spent.

Commissioner Calhoun: You know why we spent? It’s because stuff has went up over the years. Everything. I don’t know what hasn’t gone up. And this year we have $3.3 million right now at 10 months. 2 months, at $330,000 anticipated per months that is going to come out to exactly $4 million.

Dustin Land: What did the sheriff promise you when you gave him $280,000.

Commissioner Calhoun: We gave him $180,000 and he promised $3.8 million.

Mary Lee Green: I got May’s [numbers]. I did May while I was in court today. To be paid to the county for the month of May is $373,482.

Commissioner Calhoun: So we are at $3.7 million right now with one month to go.

In another discussion between Mr. Land and Commissioner Calhoun, Mr. Land tried to continue to get more info from Commissioner Calhoun on why the Sheriff and Jail budget happened to be so much higher than 10 years previously.

Dustin Land: The jail budget in 2013 is $964,000 now it is $1.5 million plus the Jail Fund is $500,000, so it is now $2 million.

Commissioner Calhoun: The Jail Fund is always in there and the amount changes year to year.

Dustin Land: But I am asking you why the increase.

Commissioner Calhoun: The exact same reason, I suppose. We were paying $11/hr years ago and now they are probably making $15 or $16/hr without looking at the exact numbers, I don’t know. Uniforms cost more, vehicles cost more. I can tell you one thing that went up. It was $55,000 my first year elected and I didn’t even like it but we had to have a nurse or doctor on call at the jail. I thought that was crazy that we pay that much money for them just to be there. The new number that we got for this coming year is, well it was $165,000 but he [Sheriff Hester] negotiated it to $155,000. That is triple that amount of money that we have to do.

Dustin Land: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day, Mr. Calhoun?

Commissioner Calhoun: You can do the math.

Dustin Land: I am asking you to do the math.

Commissioner Calhoun: It’s according to what you want to add in whether we are housing the full stock or whether we are…

Dustin Land: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day?

Commissioner Calhoun: I do not know the exact number because there are multiple variables.

Dustin Land: Thank you for sharing that with all of these taxpayers.

Several other audience members made murmurs at this statement and asked similar questions about why Turner County citizens are subsidizing the cost of housing other county’s inmates. Although Commissioner Calhoun mentioned the contract and cap on how much we can charge, that answer did not prove sufficient for citizen

Tony Land: “Why don’t you address it and do something about your spending?… You need to make some changes and some drastic changes. This has been ongoing for some time and no one is addressing the real concern… So you are going to take the path of least resistance and raise it on the taxpayers of Turner County?”

Commissioner Calhoun vehemently denied that and brought up minimum manning costs at the jail.

The rest of the meeting was a back and forth discussion with members of the audience about their displeasure in the raising of taxes. One audience member, who was a farmer and did not identify himself, tried appealing to the board that they remember the farmers who will be most affected by this tax increase since they either own or rent the largest parcels in the county:

“As a farmer, what is the #1 industry in this county? Farming. Who is the tax that is really going to affect as an industry? Farmers. We don’t own all the land but we own a lot of it. And we rent it most of the rest of it. And when their taxes go up, who has to pay it? The farmer. All I am saying is that you can’t bleed but so much as an industry before it is gone. So that is why I am asking the county to be thinking about that for a bit. In this county, who are you actually supporting? It is your #1 industry or not… I understand that everything in this world costs more today. But everyone that is in here is still here because they do know how to spend their money.”

Other community leaders and council members spoke at the meeting such as Mayor Wayne Woodruff of Sycamore, Sycamore Council Member James Galt Brown, and Sycamore Council Member Fred Eister about concerns in raising taxes for citizens on fixed incomes who may have to choose between paying their taxes or buying food or medicines.

There were also slight criticisms about lack of action in assessing properties when it should have been done several years ago and how that assessment will have to raise taxes even more causing further strain.

Mayor Woodruff: “What I am trying to get across is that the people of this county should not have to pay a dime higher in taxes because a majority of the board are going to overspend the money… I am not here to bash any department. I am not here doing that. What I am saying is that the people that you have in this county, a lot of them are on fixed income and cannot afford this.”

Commissioner Calhoun, rather than respond to the comment, begins to bring up the Sycamore City Council budget issues that were reported in The Wiregrass Farmer recently.

Not all of those present were against raising taxes. One audience member, Lisa Morelock, questioned more to the audience asking when it would be appropriate to raise taxes in our opinions. “After so much time, when is a tax increase allowed?”

With the rising inflation and the increased cost of nearly everything was brought up several times throughout the meeting and are something that everyone feels at every grocery store visit or gas purchase,

Lisa Morelock: ‘I feel like y’all [the County Commissioners] have dropped the ball for the last so many years by not half a mil here or there which would have been easier.”

Commissioner Calhoun brings up the $6 million reserves balance that was available which is why the Commissioners did not raise taxes.

Lisa Morelock: “But you have watched that deplete… I know when it starts going down, you start doing something before it is gone.”

Commissioner Calhoun agreed and presented his farmer logic. “And we should have. We kept thinking, hey, I am a farmer. So this is my logic. Next year is going to be a good year. And I can’t- I still think that with this… It can go back up. COVID did not help and I don’t want to be like everyone else and blame COVID but that didn’t help.”

The budget and the proposed mil rate increase brought Turner County citizens out in droves to the budget hearing meeting.

Whether in favor or against the spending of the county and the tax rate, one thing that can be said is that an involved citizen base is always a good thing. It shows that they are paying attention to their representatives.

The final 2023-2024 Turner County budget will be determined at the Tuesday, June 27 meeting. Now is the time to reach out to your county commissioner via phone to let them know your opinion. They represent the citizens of Turner County and your voice matters. They can be reached at (229) 567-4313 or via email contact located on the County website.

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Some transcriptions below that are relevant to story above that I included above.

Convo below:

Dana: Mr. Chair, I just have a question. Is this budget the budget that we walked out of the door with last night?

Brad: Last night, we walked out with a budget that was balanced as far as I knew. We were good to go. Mrs. Cherysh, what did you tell me at around lunchtime today. About the phone call from Mrs. Whiddon.

Cherysh: Just that they weren’t pleased with it and weren’t going to vote for it.

Brad: So, you told me that Mrs. Whiddon and Mr. Joe Burgess was not going to vote for the budget that we talked about last night because we only took $250,000 from the Sheriff and if I didn’t give up $500,000 that her and Joe was not going to vote for the budget. Is that a pretty good representation of what I was told?

Cherysh: Yes, they weren’t pleased with that budget and they probably were not going to vote for it.

Dana: And that’s what I said.

Brad: Is that accurate?

Dana: No, what I said was that myself and Mr. Burgess were concerned that we were still taking $488,000 from reserves and we felt that it was a better decision to take the full $500,000 from the jail fund and that we needed to reconsider that. And that we weren’t in a position to vote at that time. We didn’t feel like we could vote until we can clarify whether we are using the money or not.

Brad: A pretty fair statement is that you weren’t going to vote for the budget.

Dana: Until we resolved that issue.

Brad: And I was not going to give $500,000.

Dana: And that was fair. That was your feeling on it. I was expressing our concerns that we were still taking almost $500,000 from reserves. We thought this was an issue that we needed to rectify.

Brad: I get the issue.

Dana: But does this not also represent a mil rate increase?

Brad: This, so, when that information that two of you were not voting for that budget,I got the other two that is not going to vote unless we go up 2 or 3 mils, that’s not good with me either. So I – me, Nike, and Allen came to an agreement, I was willing to go up 1 mil on taxes and let Cherysh go through the numbers and make it work, and then him, and the Sheriff, and Charles worked, or whoever, worked out the rest of the Sheriff’s office and they made whatever cuts they made. Then we got the 911 budget and had to go back and make some more cuts and got it balanced with a 1 mil tax increase.

Dana: So when we walked out last night, it was balanced. Did not require a tax increase. And the money from the tax increase is going 100% to the jail.

Brad: Basically.

Dana: But we fully funded the jail. At 1.5 million dollars. When we walked out last night, they had not taken any cuts. So the proposal to add a 1% mil rate to add additional money to a budget that had not been cut.

Brad: To the whole county budget. Correct

Dana: Just want to make sure that I understand. So this is not the budget that we walked out with last night? If this budget was not presented and worked through with the whole board, then this is not a valid budget. We can’t present it because we haven’t had an open board discussion.

Brad: We went through every budget for the last few weeks.

Dana: But we are modifying budgets and we are adding a tax increase. We didn’t talk about that last night.

Brad: We most certainly talked about a tax increase, They talked about a 4 mil tax increase, a 2 mil tax increase.

Dana: But the budget last night did not include a tax increase.

Brad: It did not. It did not include a tax increase because you and Joe was going to vote to accept that. To only take $250,000. Y’all decided y’all wanted $500,000 from the Jail Fund.

Dana: Because we were concerned about taking $500,000 from the reserves. That is what I expressed.

Brad: I get what you are concerned about. I am concerned about that.

Dana: But this budget doesn’t rectify that. We are still taking $500,000 from reserves.

Brad: But we are taking $250,000 from the Jail Fund. Not $500,000.

Dana: But we are also raising the Jail budget by $250,000.

Brad: That is correct.

Dana: So now we are spending $2 million on the jail instead of $1.5 million.

Brad: Whatever the math works out too.

Dana: So we are not dealing with the health department. We are not making whole any of the cuts. We are not reinstating the janitorial contract. This $250,000 1 mil rate increase is 100% going to a budget already fully funded.That’s concerning.

Brad: Is there a question?

Dana: No, I am just making a statement that’s concerning that we are raising taxes to add to a budget that we fully funded.

Brad: It is 100%. I have done 11 budget hearings. This is the first time there is more than 2 people in this room. Because we are raising taxes. Did we not try to go through the budgets? Did I not do something correctly?

Dana: No I think last night was fine. We did everything correctly. I have concerns that after we left last night and we expressed our concerns that we couldn’t support a budget, after we looked at it. Early this morning I expressed my concerns that I don’t think I can support a budget, after looking at all the numbers, because I didn’t really have time to look at it, and Mr. Burgess had also expressed concerns, that we were still taking $500,000 from reserves. So I called this morning with the hopes that she would evaluate that and maybe we might not have this budget hearing and we could revisit it.

Brad: Did you call me?

Dana: I wanted to express it to the County Manager so that she had an opportunity to evaluate it and I asked her to call you. But you didn’t call me about the 1% tax increase.

Brad: At 12 oclock when I got the message, I said, ‘You can tell Mrs. Whiddon now that we are not going to accept that, now you can call Mrs. Whiddon and tell Mrs. Whiddon that we are not going to have to do a 1 mil tax increase to balance the budget.’

Dana: I am not upset, I am just expressing my opinion.

Brad: I was.

Dana: People need to understand that what they heard last night and what we are doing today, and I needed to understand because I spent time last night looking at all of this stuff, because we were writing #s down, and I find out that we are raising taxes. Well where is that money going? Is that money going to fix some of the broken glass where we took cuts? No it is not. We are adding to a budget we didn’t break. So that is concerning. But I have stated my concerns and return the floor to you Mr. Chair.

…

Brad: Some people believe the simple answer is to raise taxes. I did not want to raise taxes. I was not planning on raising taxes. I thought we were good. We definitely were not doing a 4 mil tax increase. That would be way too much. We have held tax increases off since 2008. We have dwindled down using that money [reserves]. Mrs. Mary Lee is bringing in money like crazy. Renee is still bringing in a good amount. Sheriff is still bringing in plenty of money but everything has went up in the last few years… I don’t like it. 1 mil tax increase is what is figured in here. That is $40 on a $100,000 house- basically… 1 mil ain’t pleasant but it’s what we had to do to get a balanced budget.

Dustin Land: Mr. Chairman, in 2013, the Sheriff’s budget was $972,000. Now it is $1.8 million. Why the 90% increase?

Brad: You will ask him specifically.

Dustin: I am asking you as Chairman of the Commission. You gave him the money, why the increase?

Brad: I will be glad to answer your question, you don’t have to be so aggressive.

Dustin: Answer the question and quit deflecting.

Brad: I am not deflecting. I am saying he can give you the exact. Basically, we are on the interstate with more patrol cars. Do you have the # of the revenue that we brought in in 2013?

Dustin: Fines and Fees? 2 million dollars.

Brad: Do you have the number through this month?

Latrese: Through April.

Cherysh: The report I ran on May the 30th, I am not sure when the data was updated, was 3,305,426.

Dustin: So my question is when has the Sheriff brought in $4 million. Has it ever happened before?

Brad: Never. So I am so tickled that we are going to do it this year. I think Mrs. Mary Lee brought in $3,685,000 last year going from memory? Around $3,700,000. And we had only had $2,700,000 budgeted to bring in do you remember?

Cherysh: 2022 anticipated was $2.7 million and actual brought in was $3.7 million.

Dustin: So why are we raising taxes.

Brad: Because we spent.

Dustin: That’s the problem I am trying to get to. Y’all spent.

Brad: You know why we spent? It’s because stuff has went up over the years. Everything. I don’t know what hasn’t gone up. And this year we have $3.3 million right now at 10 months. 2 months, at $330,000 anticipated per months that is going to come out to exactly $4 million.

Dustin: What did the sheriff promise you when you gave him $280,000.

Brad: We gave him $180,000 and he promised $3.8 million.

Mary Lee: I got May’s [numbers]. I did May while I was in court today. To be paid to the county for the month of May is $373,482.

Brad: So we are at $3.7 million right now with one month to go.

…

Dustin: The jail budget in 2013 is $964,000 now it is $1.5 million plus the Jail Fund is $500,000, so it is now $2 million.

Brad: The Jail Fund is always in there and the amount changes year to year.

Dustin: But I am asking you why the increase.

Brad: The exact same reason, I suppose. We were paying $11/hr years ago and now they are probably making $15 or $16/hr without looking at the exact numbers, I don’t know. Uniforms cost more, vehicles cost more. I can tell you 1 thing that went up. It was $55,000 my first year elected and I didn’t even like it but we had to have a nurse or doctor on call at the jail. I thought that was crazy that we pay that much money for them just to be there. The new number that we got for this coming year is, well it was $165,000 but he negotiated it to $155,000. That is triple that amount of money that we have to do.

Dustin: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day, Mr. Calhoun?

Brad: You can do the math.

Dustin: I am asking you to do the math.

Brad: It’s according to what you want to add in whether we are housing the full stock or whether we are…

Dustin: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day?

Brad: I do not know the exact number because there are multiple variables.

Dustin: Thank you for sharing that with all of these tax payers.

…

Cristi Brown Ellis: Where I am having a hard time with the math, is that 4 years ago, we had $6.something million in reserves.

Brad: No but go ahead.

Cristi: We did not?

Dana: That was 6 years ago.

Cristi: 6 years ago? Ok. Either way, right now we are sitting at $1 million in our reserves.

Brad: No. It is according to what numbers you want to look at. I have had that discussion before. We have multiple accounts. I add all of the accounts up and I go by that number. Mrs. Cherysh is looking at the Fund Balance Account. In 2011, I think it had $6 million.

Cristi: So that was our reserves.

Brad: Yes, and now, last time I looked at it a month ago, $1.4 million. But also, in 2011, there may have been $600,000 in the checking accounts. I am not looking at it. Mrs. Mary, she would keep the accounts lower in the checking accounts and she would transfer money when Renee would bring a lot of taxes and we would build the fund up because it would pay more interest. Nothing wrong with the way Latrese it but, there was $3.5 million in it last week when I looked at it.

Dana: The problem with that Mr. Chairman, as Latrese has said…

Brad: There’s not a problem.

Dana: Well, excuse me, the concern is that Mrs. Latrese said that money is already spent. That is money that has come in and is waiting to come out this fiscal year. So we cannot treat it as reserves.

Brad: I agree.

Dana: So what we have in our Georgia 1 fund which fluctuates a little bit but $1.4 million. The other part is that we have not closed out this fiscal year yet and so we have had several expenditures that we didn’t budget for that may impact that. We had the defined benefits come in and we budgeted $150,000 but it came in $424,000, so there is a gap there that is going to have to come from reserves. When we did the pay raise for $2.00/hr, we spent it based on the projection that the Sheriff might bring in $4.2 million so if that doesn’t happen, that difference will have to come out of reserves for this fiscal year. And then we had several other expense that we made. Until the books are cleaned up, right now we are running behind, so it may reduce that $1.4 million.

Cristi: My concern is the bad money management.

Brad: I don’t know if we have any.

Cristi: Really?

Brad: We spent that money. Instead of raising taxes, we utilized the fund balance. Yea we could have raised taxes 5 years ago. But we had money in the account.

…

Dana: I have said this multiple times and Mr. Calhoun and I don’t agree but I think we have a spending problem in the county. So I was very happy last night when we left and that we did have a balanced budget that didn’t raise taxes.

Brad: I was too.

Dana: My concern is that we were still tapping $500,000 more. We budgeted to take $550,000 this year. So take $500,000 from that $1.4 million and we have $900,000. Now we are going to take $500,000 this year. You are at $400,000. That is where we are at if what we projected happens. So that is what made me concerned to call and say, I think we need to reconsider using all of that money that isn’t going to force us to take it from reserves. Because I feel like we can still be balanced, we can still not raise taxes, and that would be an answer to addressing our spending out of reserves. Obviously Mr. Calhoun didn’t agree with that and that’s fine. That is why there are 5 of us. I think that that is the answer. Mr. Calhoun doesn’t agree and two other board members don’t agree. That is why we are here with the raising of taxes. It can be done, we just have to have the willpower to do it.

Some transcriptions below that are relevant to story above that Sami included above.

Convo Dana: Mr. Chair, I just have a question. Is this budget the budget that we walked out of the door with last night?

Brad: Last night, we walked out with a budget that was balanced as far as I knew. We were good to go. Mrs. Cherysh, what did you tell me at around lunchtime today. About the phone call from Mrs. Whiddon.

Cherysh: Just that they weren’t pleased with it and weren’t going to vote for it.

Brad: So, you told me that Mrs. Whiddon and Mr. Joe Burgess was not going to vote for the budget that we talked about last night because we only took $250,000 from the Sheriff and if I didn’t give up $500,000 that her and Joe was not going to vote for the budget. Is that a pretty good representation of what I was told?

Cherysh: Yes, they weren’t pleased with that budget and they probably were not going to vote for it.

Dana: And that’s what I said.

Brad: Is that accurate?

Dana: No, what I said was that myself and Mr. Burgess were concerned that we were still taking $488,000 from reserves and we felt that it was a better decision to take the full $500,000 from the jail fund and that we needed to reconsider that. And that we weren’t in a position to vote at that time. We didn’t feel like we could vote until we can clarify whether we are using the money or not.

Brad: A pretty fair statement is that you weren’t going to vote for the budget.

Dana: Until we resolved that issue.

Brad: And I was not going to give $500,000.

Dana: And that was fair. That was your feeling on it. I was expressing our concerns that we were still taking almost $500,000 from reserves. We thought this was an issue that we needed to rectify.

Brad: I get the issue.

Dana: But does this not also represent a mil rate increase?

Brad: This, so, when that information that two of you were not voting for that budget,I got the other two that is not going to vote unless we go up 2 or 3 mils, that’s not good with me either. So I – me, Nike, and Allen came to an agreement, I was willing to go up 1 mil on taxes and let Cherysh go through the numbers and make it work, and then him, and the Sheriff, and Charles worked, or whoever, worked out the rest of the Sheriff’s office and they made whatever cuts they made. Then we got the 911 budget and had to go back and make some more cuts and got it balanced with a 1 mil tax increase.

Dana: So when we walked out last night, it was balanced. Did not require a tax increase. And the money from the tax increase is going 100% to the jail.

Brad: Basically.

Dana: But we fully funded the jail. At 1.5 million dollars. When we walked out last night, they had not taken any cuts. So the proposal to add a 1% mil rate to add additional money to a budget that had not been cut.

Brad: To the whole county budget. Correct

Dana: Just want to make sure that I understand. So this is not the budget that we walked out with last night? If this budget was not presented and worked through with the whole board, then this is not a valid budget. We can’t present it because we haven’t had an open board discussion.

Brad: We went through every budget for the last few weeks.

Dana: But we are modifying budgets and we are adding a tax increase. We didn’t talk about that last night.

Brad: We most certainly talked about a tax increase, They talked about a 4 mil tax increase, a 2 mil tax increase.

Dana: But the budget last night did not include a tax increase.

Brad: It did not. It did not include a tax increase because you and Joe was going to vote to accept that. To only take $250,000. Y’all decided y’all wanted $500,000 from the Jail Fund.

Dana: Because we were concerned about taking $500,000 from the reserves. That is what I expressed.

Brad: I get what you are concerned about. I am concerned about that.

Dana: But this budget doesn’t rectify that. We are still taking $500,000 from reserves.

Brad: But we are taking $250,000 from the Jail Fund. Not $500,000.

Dana: But we are also raising the Jail budget by $250,000.

Brad: That is correct.

Dana: So now we are spending $2 million on the jail instead of $1.5 million.

Brad: Whatever the math works out too.

Dana: So we are not dealing with the health department. We are not making whole any of the cuts. We are not reinstating the janitorial contract. This $250,000 1 mil rate increase is 100% going to a budget already fully funded.That’s concerning.

Brad: Is there a question?

Dana: No, I am just making a statement that’s concerning that we are raising taxes to add to a budget that we fully funded.

Brad: It is 100%. I have done 11 budget hearings. This is the first time there is more than 2 people in this room. Because we are raising taxes. Did we not try to go through the budgets? Did I not do something correctly?

Dana: No I think last night was fine. We did everything correctly. I have concerns that after we left last night and we expressed our concerns that we couldn’t support a budget, after we looked at it. Early this morning I expressed my concerns that I don’t think I can support a budget, after looking at all the numbers, because I didn’t really have time to look at it, and Mr. Burgess had also expressed concerns, that we were still taking $500,000 from reserves. So I called this morning with the hopes that she would evaluate that and maybe we might not have this budget hearing and we could revisit it.

Brad: Did you call me?

Dana: I wanted to express it to the County Manager so that she had an opportunity to evaluate it and I asked her to call you. But you didn’t call me about the 1% tax increase.

Brad: At 12 oclock when I got the message, I said, ‘You can tell Mrs. Whiddon now that we are not going to accept that, now you can call Mrs. Whiddon and tell Mrs. Whiddon that we are not going to have to do a 1 mil tax increase to balance the budget.’

Dana: I am not upset, I am just expressing my opinion.

Brad: I was.

Dana: People need to understand that what they heard last night and what we are doing today, and I needed to understand because I spent time last night looking at all of this stuff, because we were writing #s down, and I find out that we are raising taxes. Well where is that money going? Is that money going to fix some of the broken glass where we took cuts? No it is not. We are adding to a budget we didn’t break. So that is concerning. But I have stated my concerns and return the floor to you Mr. Chair.

…

Brad: Some people believe the simple answer is to raise taxes. I did not want to raise taxes. I was not planning on raising taxes. I thought we were good. We definitely were not doing a 4 mil tax increase. That would be way too much. We have held tax increases off since 2008. We have dwindled down using that money [reserves]. Mrs. Mary Lee is bringing in money like crazy. Renee is still bringing in a good amount. Sheriff is still bringing in plenty of money but everything has went up in the last few years… I don’t like it. 1 mil tax increase is what is figured in here. That is $40 on a $100,000 house- basically… 1 mil ain’t pleasant but it’s what we had to do to get a balanced budget.

Dustin Land: Mr. Chairman, in 2013, the Sheriff’s budget was $972,000. Now it is $1.8 million. Why the 90% increase?

Brad: You will ask him specifically.

Dustin: I am asking you as Chairman of the Commission. You gave him the money, why the increase?

Brad: I will be glad to answer your question, you don’t have to be so aggressive.

Dustin: Answer the question and quit deflecting.

Brad: I am not deflecting. I am saying he can give you the exact. Basically, we are on the interstate with more patrol cars. Do you have the # of the revenue that we brought in in 2013?

Dustin: Fines and Fees? 2 million dollars.

Brad: Do you have the number through this month?

Latrese: Through April.

Cherysh: The report I ran on May the 30th, I am not sure when the data was updated, was 3,305,426.

Dustin: So my question is when has the Sheriff brought in $4 million. Has it ever happened before?

Brad: Never. So I am so tickled that we are going to do it this year. I think Mrs. Mary Lee brought in $3,685,000 last year going from memory? Around $3,700,000. And we had only had $2,700,000 budgeted to bring in do you remember?

Cherysh: 2022 anticipated was $2.7 million and actual brought in was $3.7 million.

Dustin: So why are we raising taxes.

Brad: Because we spent.

Dustin: That’s the problem I am trying to get to. Y’all spent.

Brad: You know why we spent? It’s because stuff has went up over the years. Everything. I don’t know what hasn’t gone up. And this year we have $3.3 million right now at 10 months. 2 months, at $330,000 anticipated per months that is going to come out to exactly $4 million.

Dustin: What did the sheriff promise you when you gave him $280,000.

Brad: We gave him $180,000 and he promised $3.8 million.

Mary Lee: I got May’s [numbers]. I did May while I was in court today. To be paid to the county for the month of May is $373,482.

Brad: So we are at $3.7 million right now with one month to go.

…

Dustin: The jail budget in 2013 is $964,000 now it is $1.5 million plus the Jail Fund is $500,000, so it is now $2 million.

Brad: The Jail Fund is always in there and the amount changes year to year.

Dustin: But I am asking you why the increase.

Brad: The exact same reason, I suppose. We were paying $11/hr years ago and now they are probably making $15 or $16/hr without looking at the exact numbers, I don’t know. Uniforms cost more, vehicles cost more. I can tell you 1 thing that went up. It was $55,000 my first year elected and I didn’t even like it but we had to have a nurse or doctor on call at the jail. I thought that was crazy that we pay that much money for them just to be there. The new number that we got for this coming year is, well it was $165,000 but he negotiated it to $155,000. That is triple that amount of money that we have to do.

Dustin: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day, Mr. Calhoun?

Brad: You can do the math.

Dustin: I am asking you to do the math.

Brad: It’s according to what you want to add in whether we are housing the full stock or whether we are…

Dustin: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day?

Brad: I do not know the exact number because there are multiple variables.

Dustin: Thank you for sharing that with all of these tax payers.

…

Cristi Brown Ellis: Where I am having a hard time with the math, is that 4 years ago, we had $6.something million in reserves.

Brad: No but go ahead.

Cristi: We did not?

Dana: That was 6 years ago.

Cristi: 6 years ago? Ok. Either way, right now we are sitting at $1 million in our reserves.

Brad: No. It is according to what numbers you want to look at. I have had that discussion before. We have multiple accounts. I add all of the accounts up and I go by that number. Mrs. Cherysh is looking at the Fund Balance Account. In 2011, I think it had $6 million.

Cristi: So that was our reserves.

Brad: Yes, and now, last time I looked at it a month ago, $1.4 million. But also, in 2011, there may have been $600,000 in the checking accounts. I am not looking at it. Mrs. Mary, she would keep the accounts lower in the checking accounts and she would transfer money when Renee would bring a lot of taxes and we would build the fund up because it would pay more interest. Nothing wrong with the way Latrese it but, there was $3.5 million in it last week when I looked at it.

Dana: The problem with that Mr. Chairman, as Latrese has said…

Brad: There’s not a problem.

Dana: Well, excuse me, the concern is that Mrs. Latrese said that money is already spent. That is money that has come in and is waiting to come out this fiscal year. So we cannot treat it as reserves.

Brad: I agree.

Dana: So what we have in our Georgia 1 fund which fluctuates a little bit but $1.4 million. The other part is that we have not closed out this fiscal year yet and so we have had several expenditures that we didn’t budget for that may impact that. We had the defined benefits come in and we budgeted $150,000 but it came in $424,000, so there is a gap there that is going to have to come from reserves. When we did the pay raise for $2.00/hr, we spent it based on the projection that the Sheriff might bring in $4.2 million so if that doesn’t happen, that difference will have to come out of reserves for this fiscal year. And then we had several other expense that we made. Until the books are cleaned up, right now we are running behind, so it may reduce that $1.4 million.

Cristi: My concern is the bad money management.

Brad: I don’t know if we have any.

Cristi: Really?

Brad: We spent that money. Instead of raising taxes, we utilized the fund balance. Yea we could have raised taxes 5 years ago. But we had money in the account.

…

Dana: I have said this multiple times and Mr. Calhoun and I don’t agree but I think we have a spending problem in the county. So I was very happy last night when we left and that we did have a balanced budget that didn’t raise taxes.

Brad: I was too.

Dana: My concern is that we were still tapping $500,000 more. We budgeted to take $550,000 this year. So take $500,000 from that $1.4 million and we have $900,000. Now we are going to take $500,000 this year. You are at $400,000. That is where we are at if what we projected happens. So that is what made me concerned to call and say, I think we need to reconsider using all of that money that isn’t going to force us to take it from reserves. Because I feel like we can still be balanced, we can still not raise taxes, and that would be an answer to addressing our spending out of reserves. Obviously Mr. Calhoun didn’t agree with that and that’s fine. That is why there are 5 of us. I think that that is the answer. Mr. Calhoun doesn’t agree and two other board members don’t agree. That is why we are here with the raising of taxes. It can be done, we just have to have the willpower to do it.

Some transcriptions below that are relevant to story above that Sami included above.

Convo Dana: Mr. Chair, I just have a question. Is this budget the budget that we walked out of the door with last night?

Brad: Last night, we walked out with a budget that was balanced as far as I knew. We were good to go. Mrs. Cherysh, what did you tell me at around lunchtime today. About the phone call from Mrs. Whiddon.

Cherysh: Just that they weren’t pleased with it and weren’t going to vote for it.

Brad: So, you told me that Mrs. Whiddon and Mr. Joe Burgess was not going to vote for the budget that we talked about last night because we only took $250,000 from the Sheriff and if I didn’t give up $500,000 that her and Joe was not going to vote for the budget. Is that a pretty good representation of what I was told?

Cherysh: Yes, they weren’t pleased with that budget and they probably were not going to vote for it.

Dana: And that’s what I said.

Brad: Is that accurate?

Dana: No, what I said was that myself and Mr. Burgess were concerned that we were still taking $488,000 from reserves and we felt that it was a better decision to take the full $500,000 from the jail fund and that we needed to reconsider that. And that we weren’t in a position to vote at that time. We didn’t feel like we could vote until we can clarify whether we are using the money or not.

Brad: A pretty fair statement is that you weren’t going to vote for the budget.

Dana: Until we resolved that issue.

Brad: And I was not going to give $500,000.

Dana: And that was fair. That was your feeling on it. I was expressing our concerns that we were still taking almost $500,000 from reserves. We thought this was an issue that we needed to rectify.

Brad: I get the issue.

Dana: But does this not also represent a mil rate increase?

Brad: This, so, when that information that two of you were not voting for that budget,I got the other two that is not going to vote unless we go up 2 or 3 mils, that’s not good with me either. So I – me, Nike, and Allen came to an agreement, I was willing to go up 1 mil on taxes and let Cherysh go through the numbers and make it work, and then him, and the Sheriff, and Charles worked, or whoever, worked out the rest of the Sheriff’s office and they made whatever cuts they made. Then we got the 911 budget and had to go back and make some more cuts and got it balanced with a 1 mil tax increase.

Dana: So when we walked out last night, it was balanced. Did not require a tax increase. And the money from the tax increase is going 100% to the jail.

Brad: Basically.

Dana: But we fully funded the jail. At 1.5 million dollars. When we walked out last night, they had not taken any cuts. So the proposal to add a 1% mil rate to add additional money to a budget that had not been cut.

Brad: To the whole county budget. Correct

Dana: Just want to make sure that I understand. So this is not the budget that we walked out with last night? If this budget was not presented and worked through with the whole board, then this is not a valid budget. We can’t present it because we haven’t had an open board discussion.

Brad: We went through every budget for the last few weeks.

Dana: But we are modifying budgets and we are adding a tax increase. We didn’t talk about that last night.

Brad: We most certainly talked about a tax increase, They talked about a 4 mil tax increase, a 2 mil tax increase.

Dana: But the budget last night did not include a tax increase.

Brad: It did not. It did not include a tax increase because you and Joe was going to vote to accept that. To only take $250,000. Y’all decided y’all wanted $500,000 from the Jail Fund.

Dana: Because we were concerned about taking $500,000 from the reserves. That is what I expressed.

Brad: I get what you are concerned about. I am concerned about that.

Dana: But this budget doesn’t rectify that. We are still taking $500,000 from reserves.

Brad: But we are taking $250,000 from the Jail Fund. Not $500,000.

Dana: But we are also raising the Jail budget by $250,000.

Brad: That is correct.

Dana: So now we are spending $2 million on the jail instead of $1.5 million.

Brad: Whatever the math works out too.

Dana: So we are not dealing with the health department. We are not making whole any of the cuts. We are not reinstating the janitorial contract. This $250,000 1 mil rate increase is 100% going to a budget already fully funded.That’s concerning.

Brad: Is there a question?

Dana: No, I am just making a statement that’s concerning that we are raising taxes to add to a budget that we fully funded.

Brad: It is 100%. I have done 11 budget hearings. This is the first time there is more than 2 people in this room. Because we are raising taxes. Did we not try to go through the budgets? Did I not do something correctly?

Dana: No I think last night was fine. We did everything correctly. I have concerns that after we left last night and we expressed our concerns that we couldn’t support a budget, after we looked at it. Early this morning I expressed my concerns that I don’t think I can support a budget, after looking at all the numbers, because I didn’t really have time to look at it, and Mr. Burgess had also expressed concerns, that we were still taking $500,000 from reserves. So I called this morning with the hopes that she would evaluate that and maybe we might not have this budget hearing and we could revisit it.

Brad: Did you call me?

Dana: I wanted to express it to the County Manager so that she had an opportunity to evaluate it and I asked her to call you. But you didn’t call me about the 1% tax increase.

Brad: At 12 oclock when I got the message, I said, ‘You can tell Mrs. Whiddon now that we are not going to accept that, now you can call Mrs. Whiddon and tell Mrs. Whiddon that we are not going to have to do a 1 mil tax increase to balance the budget.’

Dana: I am not upset, I am just expressing my opinion.

Brad: I was.

Dana: People need to understand that what they heard last night and what we are doing today, and I needed to understand because I spent time last night looking at all of this stuff, because we were writing #s down, and I find out that we are raising taxes. Well where is that money going? Is that money going to fix some of the broken glass where we took cuts? No it is not. We are adding to a budget we didn’t break. So that is concerning. But I have stated my concerns and return the floor to you Mr. Chair.

…

Brad: Some people believe the simple answer is to raise taxes. I did not want to raise taxes. I was not planning on raising taxes. I thought we were good. We definitely were not doing a 4 mil tax increase. That would be way too much. We have held tax increases off since 2008. We have dwindled down using that money [reserves]. Mrs. Mary Lee is bringing in money like crazy. Renee is still bringing in a good amount. Sheriff is still bringing in plenty of money but everything has went up in the last few years… I don’t like it. 1 mil tax increase is what is figured in here. That is $40 on a $100,000 house- basically… 1 mil ain’t pleasant but it’s what we had to do to get a balanced budget.

Dustin Land: Mr. Chairman, in 2013, the Sheriff’s budget was $972,000. Now it is $1.8 million. Why the 90% increase?

Brad: You will ask him specifically.

Dustin: I am asking you as Chairman of the Commission. You gave him the money, why the increase?

Brad: I will be glad to answer your question, you don’t have to be so aggressive.

Dustin: Answer the question and quit deflecting.

Brad: I am not deflecting. I am saying he can give you the exact. Basically, we are on the interstate with more patrol cars. Do you have the # of the revenue that we brought in in 2013?

Dustin: Fines and Fees? 2 million dollars.

Brad: Do you have the number through this month?

Latrese: Through April.

Cherysh: The report I ran on May the 30th, I am not sure when the data was updated, was 3,305,426.

Dustin: So my question is when has the Sheriff brought in $4 million. Has it ever happened before?

Brad: Never. So I am so tickled that we are going to do it this year. I think Mrs. Mary Lee brought in $3,685,000 last year going from memory? Around $3,700,000. And we had only had $2,700,000 budgeted to bring in do you remember?

Cherysh: 2022 anticipated was $2.7 million and actual brought in was $3.7 million.

Dustin: So why are we raising taxes.

Brad: Because we spent.

Dustin: That’s the problem I am trying to get to. Y’all spent.

Brad: You know why we spent? It’s because stuff has went up over the years. Everything. I don’t know what hasn’t gone up. And this year we have $3.3 million right now at 10 months. 2 months, at $330,000 anticipated per months that is going to come out to exactly $4 million.

Dustin: What did the sheriff promise you when you gave him $280,000.

Brad: We gave him $180,000 and he promised $3.8 million.

Mary Lee: I got May’s [numbers]. I did May while I was in court today. To be paid to the county for the month of May is $373,482.

Brad: So we are at $3.7 million right now with one month to go.

…

Dustin: The jail budget in 2013 is $964,000 now it is $1.5 million plus the Jail Fund is $500,000, so it is now $2 million.

Brad: The Jail Fund is always in there and the amount changes year to year.

Dustin: But I am asking you why the increase.

Brad: The exact same reason, I suppose. We were paying $11/hr years ago and now they are probably making $15 or $16/hr without looking at the exact numbers, I don’t know. Uniforms cost more, vehicles cost more. I can tell you 1 thing that went up. It was $55,000 my first year elected and I didn’t even like it but we had to have a nurse or doctor on call at the jail. I thought that was crazy that we pay that much money for them just to be there. The new number that we got for this coming year is, well it was $165,000 but he negotiated it to $155,000. That is triple that amount of money that we have to do.

Dustin: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day, Mr. Calhoun?

Brad: You can do the math.

Dustin: I am asking you to do the math.

Brad: It’s according to what you want to add in whether we are housing the full stock or whether we are…

Dustin: How much does it cost to house an inmate per day?

Brad: I do not know the exact number because there are multiple variables.

Dustin: Thank you for sharing that with all of these tax payers.

…

Cristi Brown Ellis: Where I am having a hard time with the math, is that 4 years ago, we had $6.something million in reserves.

Brad: No but go ahead.

Cristi: We did not?

Dana: That was 6 years ago.

Cristi: 6 years ago? Ok. Either way, right now we are sitting at $1 million in our reserves.

Brad: No. It is according to what numbers you want to look at. I have had that discussion before. We have multiple accounts. I add all of the accounts up and I go by that number. Mrs. Cherysh is looking at the Fund Balance Account. In 2011, I think it had $6 million.

Cristi: So that was our reserves.

Brad: Yes, and now, last time I looked at it a month ago, $1.4 million. But also, in 2011, there may have been $600,000 in the checking accounts. I am not looking at it. Mrs. Mary, she would keep the accounts lower in the checking accounts and she would transfer money when Renee would bring a lot of taxes and we would build the fund up because it would pay more interest. Nothing wrong with the way Latrese it but, there was $3.5 million in it last week when I looked at it.

Dana: The problem with that Mr. Chairman, as Latrese has said…

Brad: There’s not a problem.

Dana: Well, excuse me, the concern is that Mrs. Latrese said that money is already spent. That is money that has come in and is waiting to come out this fiscal year. So we cannot treat it as reserves.

Brad: I agree.

Dana: So what we have in our Georgia 1 fund which fluctuates a little bit but $1.4 million. The other part is that we have not closed out this fiscal year yet and so we have had several expenditures that we didn’t budget for that may impact that. We had the defined benefits come in and we budgeted $150,000 but it came in $424,000, so there is a gap there that is going to have to come from reserves. When we did the pay raise for $2.00/hr, we spent it based on the projection that the Sheriff might bring in $4.2 million so if that doesn’t happen, that difference will have to come out of reserves for this fiscal year. And then we had several other expense that we made. Until the books are cleaned up, right now we are running behind, so it may reduce that $1.4 million.

Cristi: My concern is the bad money management.

Brad: I don’t know if we have any.

Cristi: Really?

Brad: We spent that money. Instead of raising taxes, we utilized the fund balance. Yea we could have raised taxes 5 years ago. But we had money in the account.

…

Dana: I have said this multiple times and Mr. Calhoun and I don’t agree but I think we have a spending problem in the county. So I was very happy last night when we left and that we did have a balanced budget that didn’t raise taxes.

Brad: I was too.

Dana: My concern is that we were still tapping $500,000 more. We budgeted to take $550,000 this year. So take $500,000 from that $1.4 million and we have $900,000. Now we are going to take $500,000 this year. You are at $400,000. That is where we are at if what we projected happens. So that is what made me concerned to call and say, I think we need to reconsider using all of that money that isn’t going to force us to take it from reserves. Because I feel like we can still be balanced, we can still not raise taxes, and that would be an answer to addressing our spending out of reserves. Obviously Mr. Calhoun didn’t agree with that and that’s fine. That is why there are 5 of us. I think that that is the answer. Mr. Calhoun doesn’t agree and two other board members don’t agree. That is why we are here with the raising of taxes. It can be done, we just have to have the willpower to do it.