The budget that the County Commission is poised to approve on Tuesday is not the same budget about which the county held public hearings last year. It also appears that Chairman Charles Bannister plans to exact a little political payback on a fellow Commissioner, but it will be the residents of Commission District 3 who will suffer.

Budget `Bait and Switch`

Bannister presented his 2010 budget to the other Commissioners and to the public on December 1, as required by law. The law is designed to give the public ample opportunity to review the document prior to its adoption. The required public hearings were also held.

A day or so before Christmas, however, Bannister sent the Commissioners a revised budget which increases spending by $6.3 million. Not only that, but Bannister juggled a number of capital projects, fast-tracking a park development in his home city of Lilburn while postponing a new park a few miles from the home of Mike Beaudreau, the only Commissioner to vote against the 2.28-mill tax increase.

Even worse, Bannister’s unilateral revision of the published budget may be illegal.

Some of Bannister’s changes:

• $500,000 subsidy to Partnership Gwinnett;
• $82,000 related to the county’s AAA bond rating;
• $6,500 for the County Administrator’s attendance at various conferences.

Bannister proposes to pay for these additions by transferring $500,000 less from the operating budget to the capital budget later in the year, as has been the usual practice. The artful number tweaking allows Bannister to increase non-capital spending without adjusting the operating budget’s bottom line by a single dollar.

Capital spending will increase by much more than the $6.3 million that Bannister proposes to add to the budget. He will make up the difference by deferring other projects including the Harbins Community Park in the Archer school cluster.

Bannister wants to postpone the engineering phase of the District 3 park from 2010 to 2013. He will instead spend that $1.2 million on the Lion’s Club Park in Lilburn this year, rather than in 2012 as planned. There appears to be no justification for this swap except to punish Beaudreau for his continuing stand against wasteful spending and tax increases.

Other additional capital spending:

• $250K for an airport feasibility study;
• $500K for a “nuisance abatement project;”
• $7.6M for fire stations #31 and #10 (relocation);
• $110K for a police aviation fuel truck.

The revision will also postpone development of the Rabbit Hill Park from this year to 2013.

Bannister proposes to increase the budget despite the county’s expectation that 2010 will be worse economically than previously projected.

Budget Deception

State law appears to prohibit the revision of the published budget proposal, except by a majority vote on an amendment during a public meeting… or by starting the public hearing process anew.  The Chairman cannot simply change the budget published on December 1 on his own.

The Chairman’s plan to adopt a budget different from the one that was presented to the public is tantamount to a lie. But then, deception appears to be Bannister’s stock in trade.

After the  2.28-mill tax increase was adopted, the county’s finance director announced that the additional revenue might be spent to reduce the county’s accrued liabilities, even though the increase had been sold as necessary to fund police officers, fire stations and recreation. Apparently, a decision on what the money will actually be spent has not been made.

I strongly encourage you to contact the Commission and send Bannister a message similar to the following:

Commissioners, I do not want you to approve a budget different from the one for which public hearings were held, except by amendment in a public meeting. I do not want you to increase spending. Chairman Bannister, I insist that you honor the expectations created by last year’s millage increase hearings and budget hearings.

To be effective, you must send your email before the Commission’s 2 pm meeting today.

More on This Topic:

• A Failure to Lead: When Property Tax Cuts Go Wrong
• Gwinnett`s Financial Woes Many Years in the Making
• Pay Lower Property Taxes
• A Deal to Save Gwinnett
• The Tax Increase: Sufficient For the Day Is the Evil Thereof