The Augusta Commission launched the 2024 city budget process with a daylong retreat hosted by Augusta University.
After morning presentations on the health of the area economy and the status of local tax revenues, commissioners and the mayor met for more than an hour in small groups with city department heads who will soon begin filing their departments’ budget requests.
What came of the “speed-dating” session facilitated in a university ballroom by AU Political Science Professor Wesley Meares was a set of a dozen priorities for the budget year, which starts in January.
“We really enjoy getting to partner with the city,” said Meares, who heads the university’s Masters in Public Administration program. “Our mission is to contribute to governance.”
Chief among the priorities were the recruitment and retention of good employees. Staffing levels are so low, especially among certified law enforcement, that what were once more than 20 inmate work crews able to go out are down to five, Commissioner Sean Frantom noted.
Accountants who once seemed to grow on trees today are difficult to recruit, Finance Director Donna Williams said.
Routine cost-of-living adjustments are needed, as are cuts, Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle said, while Commissioner Francine Scott said internships could grow interest in working for the government.
Another priority was streamlining processes, such as preventing disconnects as an item makes its way through the city bureaucracy, Commissioner Alvin Mason said. “It shouldn’t spend 15-30 days going through some department to get a project started,” he said.
Frantom said increasing department head spending limits and “piggybacking” vendors – using an existing procurement to acquire certain goods or services would streamline turnaround on city projects. He also advocated to “keep departments at current levels or less.”
Mayor Garnett Johnson, a successful office business owner, reiterated his call to “find efficiencies for our constituents and our taxpayers,” in the new budget. “I’ve been with this government for five months. I see there’s opportunities there.”
Tuesday, Interim City Administrator Takiyah Douse gave commissioners copies of a plan to increase efficiencies, but did not present the plan.
Johnson said there was “room for” the plan in the budget, while Augusta is hardly unique in struggling to recruit and retain workers. Some of the area’s highest-paying employers struggle to retain staff, he said.
Augusta, meanwhile, has “some of the best health benefits than any employer I’ve ever been employed (with.) We need to sell that more. It matters to a lot of people, so we just have to tell our story on creating a great work environment, where people really want to work.”
