The Henry County Board of Commissioners met today to adopt the annual budget for next year.
After much debate on the four furlough days for county employee included in the budget, they finally voted to pass a $115 million budget all the while knowing that revenues will only be $105 million. Naturally, the Commissioners won’t address the plan to fill that $10 million gap until after the July 31st elections. And by plan I mean a property tax increase. And, just to be clear, last years budget was $112 million so, instead of cutting the overall budget, the Commissioners voted to increase spending this year by $3 million. (UPDATE: Technically, only Holder, Bowman and Stamey voted to increase spending. Preston and Holmes voted No. I apologize to both of them for not initially pointing that out.)
Notable in this meeting was the fact that this was the very first time since 2007 that the Board of Commissioners have publicly addressed the purchase of Cottonfields Golf Course. For five years they have hidden its cost and intended purpose from you and never gave you an opportunity to have a say in the matter.
In the course of today’s meeting Commissioner Bruce Holmes had the audacity to bring up the fact that the county-owned golf course only takes in $24k a year while at the same time the interest we pay on it annually is $38k causing a revenue loss. He was summarily poo-pooed by Mathis some of the other Board members for mentioning it.
Also, Chairman BJ Mathis falsely claimed that the golf course was purchased in 2006 before the “world-wide” recession started. In fact, they bought it in April 2007 when the recession was already looming. She dripped with sarcasm as she suggested that if she’d just been able to predict it though, well, she could have won the lottery, too.
Mathis did finally admit that the plan all along for the golf course was to build a “campus area for our government services” and eventually relocate the Courthouse from downtown McDonough on to the golf course property. That’s weird because the Development Authority said the purpose for buying it was to sell it off to create an industrial park to increase the tax base.
“…solely for the purpose of (1) facilitating the acquisition, development, financing and management, on behalf of Henry County Development Authority and/or Henry County, Georgia, of property known as Fairways at Cottonfield as an industrial/office park for the promotion of an increased tax base and employment within Henry County and other public purposes.”
The fact that the debt caused by the golf course is a fiscal ticking time bomb seems to be completely lost on her and she is absolutely unapologetic about it.
County Manager Fred Auletta is still trying to find a way to blame everyone but the Commissioner for your taxes being so outrageously high. Once again he points the finger at the Board of Education, the Hospital Authority, and the Water Authority. While it is true that there is room for improvement on the part of the BOE, he seems to forget that the members of the Hospital and Water Authorities are appointed by the County Commissioners, so ultimately the responsibility lies squarely on them.
The big decision of the day was whether or not to throw the County Ordinance book out the window and disregard the May 31st deadline for having a budget passed. Mathis argued was that since the State law gives them until June 30th it wouldn’t be any big deal to (once again) act like the County Ordinances don’t exist. I’ll be sure to remember that the next time I want to have a cigarette in a tattoo parlor or build a mailbox made out of out of bricks.
Watch the video of the meeting here. Jump ahead to the 39:00 minute mark and be prepared to watch an hour of utter failure.
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UPDATE: Mike Moon gives his recap of this BOC meeting here. He makes an excellent point that the taxpayers just funded the expansion of the current court house as well as the addition of the parking deck. Why on earth would we build an entire new judicial complex at the golf course after spending money on all that? Indeed.
