Gazaway doesn’t have answers: revenue left out
“I don’t trust one number on one sheet of paper sitting in front of me,” Fannin County Post One Commissioner Earl Johnson said about the proposed 2020 budget during a Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday, November 26. “I don’t believe in one number that’s on here.”
During a workshop meeting prior to the board meeting, the board discussed a proposed 2020 budget that includes $19,937,225 in General Fund Expenditures. This is an increase from 2019, which included $19,010,743 for the General Fund.
The proposed budget’s Grand Total Expenditures are $28,564,665, with Grand Total Revenue Funds listed as $27,904,369.
Chairman Stan Helton credits the $926,482 increase to increases in the Risk Management, Board of Elections, Sheriff/Detention Center and Fire Department budgets, as well as a 2% pay increase for county employees across the board.
Post Two Commissioner Glenn Patterson asked about the county’s fund balance amount. Gazaway told him it was around $10 million in 2019.
Johnson said, “It’s kind of hard for me to make a decision on where we’re gonna be next year when you don’t have a number here for all of us to look at.”
Gazaway responded, “Well if you had asked me before the meeting I would have been glad to have given you a little bit more accurate number. But what I’m saying is, if I remember what we, what the shortfall was for this year, I can’t remember what that number was, but say it was about $500,000, we’re running about 1% under budget, so one percent of that is $50,000. So our fund balance by the end of the year will be the $10 million less than approximately the $500,000.”
Patterson asked if the county would have a fund balance of $9.5 million for 2020 and Gazaway said, “If we stay on track.”
Following further discussions, Patterson asked Gazaway, “Generally speaking, we’re in financially sound standing correct?”
Gazaway said, “Oh yes.”
Johnson continued to say that it would be hard for the board to pass a budget without the fund balance figure.
“Have you had that number in the past,” Gazaway asked. “I’ll look at any of the minutes and see if you’ve had that number in the past.”
Johnson responded, “All I want is the number Ms. Gazaway. You always have a very good comeback. If I don’t have the number, I’m not moving forward with this.”
Helton asked Gazaway to find and provide the board with an approximate fund balance number before the meeting following the workshop.
Following the workshop, Gazaway provided the board with a her monthly financial slideshow update in the board’s regular meeting.
She included a slide that showed Public Works as being $175,542 over budget for New SPLOST as of October. The slide also included the Georgia Department of Transportation Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG) grant figure of $732,476, but did not include the over $60,000 in Safety LMIG grant money the department had received from the state.
When asked why the full generated revenue to the department was not included on the slide to better explain that Public Works was not actually over budget Gazaway said, “Mr. Helton asked me just to put the LMIG on there.”
Johnson said, “We’re told that we’re $175,000 over budget, but truthfully real money expended by county expenditures, we’re not. But see, you have to decipher all this because of the way our CFO decides to report all of these numbers.
“So since I don’t feel comfortable with a single number that you (Gazaway) provided me with, I won’t be voting on a budget. It’ll be up to the two of you (Helton and Patterson), if you feel comfortable.”
Patterson asked Johnson if he believed Public Works had actually gone over budget. Johnson said that while he knew they had not becasue he had remembered the total LMIG revenue figures, Gazaway’s report did not accurately reflect that.
“It’s all in semantics,” Patterson said. “So you don’t want to do that budget because you don’t like her reporting, correct?”
Johnson responded, “There’s a number of how much money is in the bank, correct? Do you know how much money we have to spend (right now)? This is how much money is in the bank. Do you know what our accounts payable are right now? You take that acounts payable, you minus it from this number and that gives you a true number, but you can’t do that right now. That’s why I’m not going to be voting on the budget tonight.”
Patterson asked what could be done to make Johnson feel comfortable enough to pass the budget.
“We can provide real, accurate reports and we can have real, accurate fund balance numbers,” Johnson said. “We can act like every county around us. We can act like simple businesses. An ice cream business knows how much ice cream, how much they fault and what’s left. It doesn’t matter what type of business. This is a county. It’s very serious to me.”
Both Helton and Patterson both stated they felt comfortable with the budget as is, however Patterson asked if it were possible to postpone the vote because he felt it needed to be unanimous.
According to Helton, the budget must be voted on by the board’s first meeting in December. Board members then voted to table a decision on the budget until their Tuesday, December 10 meeting.