Well, that was easy:
The cuts include about $7.1 million primarily from the scheduled expansion of police staff, about $13 million in capital improvements and another $2.7 million in board initiatives.
About $4 million in cuts involve the proposed addition of 47 police positions. So far this year, police have added 11 positions. Those hires are not threatened by the cuts, said County Administrator Jock Connell.
The capital improvements cut would include $4 million for the police annex in Lawrenceville. Also affected would be Hamilton Mill Library in Dacula, which was supposed to be built this year.
The plan eliminates 103 vacant positions for a savings of $5.1 million. It calls for reductions of $4.2 million in its reserves and contingency accounts. Another $2 million in combined cuts will be sought from the courts, sheriff’s office, tax commissioner’s office and district attorney’s office.
Now it’s on to the 2010 budget.
Connell said this is the “first round” of budget cuts designed to balance the budget without raising property taxes. Another two rounds of cuts will be held during the summer, he said.
The goal, he said, is to revise operating costs so future budgets can be balanced. While these cuts will balance the current budget with about $12 million left over, Connell said the county faces a $60 million shortfall for 2010.
So we went from a massive tax increase to having $12 million left over with relative ease. Don’t get me wrong, I know each of these Commissioners, I like each one of them, and generally they do a pretty good job. But wow they could have saved themselves a whole lot of trouble if they had done this back in March.
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Indeed, Mr. Buzz.
I could care less about Gwinnett, but this sounds a lot like what the State did years ago.
Just be cautious commissioners. The last thing Gwinnett county needs it the inability to police the county and the use up nearly all reserves.
And, most of all, do not forget growth.
The library is already under construction. The physical structure is already built.
Not the library! They can’t cut the library! It’s for the children! Oh no!
Government educated children don’t read books anymore… imagine tweeting Tale of Two Cities…
ChuckDickens IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it
ChuckDickens was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of des
ChuckDickens69: Its far far betr thng i do than i hv evr done. its far far betr plc i g2 thn i hv evr knwn.
Hmmm… as much as I like seeing a government cut spending instead of finding new revenue to stuff in its pie hole, it appears most of these cuts are in public safety. Given the changing demographics of the county and the aging of the housing stock and commercial properties, decreases in law enforcement might end up being penny wise, pound foolish.
Too bad there isn’t money from say, hotel occupancy taxes and car rentals that could go toward public safety. Just what are those taxes going toward instead? Hmmmmm…..
Priorities, priorities, priorities….
Yeah, if they cut (*) public safety, constituents scream “priorities!”. If they cut education, constituents scream “priorities!”. If they cut (*) infrastructure maintenance, constituents scream “priorities!”. Cutting (*) parks and libraries might not raise as big an uproar among Peach Pundit’s right-wing crowd (after all, you guys hate nature and don’t read!)… but more average family-type constituents scream “priorities!”.
Spending cuts (*) and sacrifice is what small government MEANS. The problem is that almost nobody really wants that. They want services cut for everyone else, while maintaining or increasing the services that they themselves use. Person #1 says, “I don’t personally have kids, so cut schools and parks… but please hire more cops because Latinos are scary.” Person #2 says the opposite, etc. The amount of bullsh*t you have to endure to trim ANYTHING is why spending cuts are so rare, and so small when they occur.
This is the same story as with all the endless “tax reform” schemes that are hashed out here… the rabid fans all believe that they’ll sacrifice less under a new scheme, while their idiot neighbor will get stuck with greater sacrifice. Scratch the surface on any of these tax or spending discussions, and there’s no real responsibility to be found. Just people on all ends of the spectrum wanting to get more out of the system than they put in.
(*) Note that there are NO “cuts” here at all… just a temporary hiring freeze and postponement of some construction projects.
Hey, we read! I just read your entire post without any help from the government.
oh wait! I did go to gubermint sckoolz which means I read it but I don’t understand it.
What a farce!
When Gwinnett officials avoid providing solid documentation, back-of-the-envelope numbers become gospel. According to Buzz Brockway’s lead-in post, Commissioners ‘cut Gwinnett County’s 2009 budget by $22 million’ — with about $4 million (18+%) attributable to NOT filling 47 proposed additional police positions.
Turn the clock back to Gwinnett County’s 2002 budget when “Butch” Conway, County Sheriff, sued the Board of Commissioners for a budget increase of $3.5 million to fund 54 additional full-time positions and 2 additional part-time positions. Restated, Conway estimated a fully loaded cost of approximately $63,650 per new full-time employee in 2002. Fast forward 7 years: the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners estimated a fully loaded cost of approximately $74,075 per new comparable full-time employee in 2009. Restated and assuming that the starting wage/benefits for police officers and sheriff deputies were near equal in 2002, the Commissioners effectively are asking taxpayers to believe that its cost to put a new deputy/police officer on the street (or wherever) only increased an average 2-1/4% per year between 2002 and 2009.
The presiding Georgia Superior Court Judge in that lawsuit (Civil Action, File No. 02-A-3121-3) found that the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners actually increased the Sheriff’s budget (2002 vs 2001) by $500,000. Additionally, the County indicated its willingness to provide ‘civilian type’ support personnel thereby eliminating the need for the Sheriff to use sworn law enforcement officers to do such work. This personnel switch was estimated to ’save’ the Sheriff “several million dollars” which he then could use for additional law enforcement personnel.
So what was the bottom line of this lawsuit? The Gwinnett Sheriff sued for an additional $3.5 million in his budget; and he effectively got the equivalent of 3.5 million.
What’s the significance of all this hanky-panky? Virtually all of the “cuts” made by the Gwinnett Commissioners are smoke and mirrors — underestimated savings; deferred (as opposed to permanent) cuts in personnel and capital projects; elimination of already vacant positions; reductions in reserve and contingency accounts which were sorely depleted when it was common knowledge that the economy was in a funk; etc.
What’s the short-term outlook for existing Gwinnett County small commercial businesses and residential property owners? HIGHER PROPERTY TAXES! Why? Because (1) bureaucratically selected “cuts” will be in areas most hurtful to long-time residents (example: almost 1/5th of the current $22 million in proposed “cuts” are police service related); (2) such “cuts” coupled with underestimated savings most likely will be used to bludgeon long-time property owners into paying higher taxes for restoration of such vital services; (3) tax abatements and other incentives to attract new large corporations will reduce the Gwinnett property tax digest. Therefore paying for such ‘growth’ primarily will fall on existing small commercial businesses and residential property owners in Gwinnett County; and (4) in that only about 1/2 of all Gwinnett County jobs are held by Gwinnett County residents, the multiplier value of spending by non-Gwinnett job holders will decline due to the “new normal” and their desire to support businesses in their county-of-residence. Therefore any such Gwinnett County job growth very likely will add — not subtract — to the necessity of existing small commercial businesses and property owning residents to pay for more than their fair share of associated transportation and other social program costs.
About time to start whittling down public school budgets?
Georgia’s and most County budget situations are getting worse by the day with no end in sight. Isn’t it long past time that exorbitant funding of public school system activities take their ‘fair share’ haircut? And before pro-public education moonbats (who are convinced more money automatically equals better student academic achievement) jump all over this post, I’m talking about stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with student academic performance!
Where to start? How about with Georgia’s largest public school system — Gwinnett County — whose latest annual budget is $2+ BILLION? Who’s best positioned to start whittling away at non-academic costs? How about the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners which is legally required to approve the County public school system’s school tax millage rate? How to kick-start whittling down such costs? Why can’t Gwinnett Commissioners (assuming they can muster the political will) use their bully pulpit to ‘educate’ parents and local taxpayers as to how Gwinnett public school system officials misrepresent statistics, inflate budgets and how much County tax money could be saved annually?
There is precedent for Gwinnett County Commissioners to do exactly this! In 2002, Gwinnett County Sheriff “Butch” Conway sued the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners for abusing its discretion by not approving his budget as submitted. The Sheriff contended that he was an elected constitutional officer with statutory responsibilities therefore the Board of Commissioners should have no control over his budget.
Perhaps somebody can justify two diametrically opposed legal opinions re: the role of the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners in two elected constitutional County organizations: (1) In June, 2002, the Gwinnett County Attorney opined that the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners “—[HAD] NO DISCRETION in levying the taxes [which support Gwinnett Board of Education submitted budgets] requested by the [elected] Board of Education.” (2) Two months later, in August, 2002, the presiding state Judge in Conway’s lawsuit opined that the Gwinnett Board of
Commissioners “— DID [ACT] RESPONSIBLY AND DID GIVE REASONABLE CONSIDERATION TO THE REQUESTS AND NEEDS OF THE SHERIFF” when, in their discretion, the Gwinnett Commissioners reworked the elected Sheriff’s submitted budget. (emphasis added)
After everybody has their say why it’s OK for the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners to question/rework one elected officer’s organizational budget but not anothers, we’ll throw out some examples of Gwinnett public school system non-academic ‘earmarks’ that are ripe candidates for ‘haircuts.’
Let’s see if we can make sense out of this situation. Gwinnett County has 2 elected constitutional entities with statutory responsibilities — the Sheriff and the Board of Education. The Gwinnett Board of Commissioners CAN rework the Sheriff’s budget, but it has NO DISCRETION whatsoever with respect to the Gwinnett Board of Education’s budgets.
The Gwinnett Public School System (GCPS) ‘forecasts’ its future K-12 student enrollments and bases its annual operating budgets + supplemental E-SPLOST capital programs thereon. The number of K-12 students is the principal driver — more ‘forecasted’ students = bigger operating and capital budgets. Sounds logical, however, reliance on ‘forecasted’ student enrollments embodies two concerns: (A) the accuracy of the ‘forecasts,’ and (B) who should address inaccurate ‘forecasts.’
With respect to (A): GCPS planners ‘forecast’ K-12 student enrollments. When Gwinnett County’s population was in constant growth mode and GCPS planners were privy to residential developer’s plans and schedules, they were ‘pretty much on target’ with student ‘forecasts’ during most of the 1995-2005 decade. If you want to verify this assertion, check out their K-12 enrollment ‘forecasts’ reported by the AJ/C Gwinnett and the Gwinnett Daily Post with the average of the two actual student counts (October and the following March of each school year) conducted by GCPS and reported to the Georgia Department of Education.
Starting with the onset of the current residential real estate downturn, GCPS planner ‘forecasts’ went to hell in a handbasket in 2 areas: (1) whereas their student enrollment ‘forecasts’ were within the +/- 500 range per school year during the 1995-05 decade; their student enrollment ‘forecasts’ were OFF about 4 times that amount — +/- 1,930 student per school year — thereafter. And (2) whereas the actual October (1.e., beginning of school year) student counts and March (i.e., end of school year) counts were about the SAME during the 1995-05 decade, thereafter the March counts have been LESS than the October counts. Confirmation that GCPS annual K-12 student enrollments have been declining by thousands of students over the past few school years!
The March 2009 ACTUAL GCPS count was 154,730 K-12 students compared to a ‘forecasted’ enrollment of 157,734 students. A past 5-year ‘forecast’ projected 162,236 GCPS students in the 2009-10 school year. Anyone really believe that it’s accurate to expect an additional 7,506 students to enroll at GCPS over 6 months? That expectation is about as ridiculous as a January 2008 ‘forecast’ of 187,338 additional GCPS students by the 2014-15 school year. Anyone really believe that it’s accurate to expect 32,608 additional students to enroll at GCPS over the next 5 years?
The implications of these numbers and who should react will be discussed in the next post.
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