An Augusta Commission committee recommended approval for a government rightsizing proposal Tuesday. But commissioners took no action advancing ordinances to regulate panhandling and hotel guests who quit paying, referring both for additional study.
Interim Administrator Takiyah Douse presented the rightsizing plan last month after the commission tasked her with identifying cost-savings to replace American Rescue Plan spending used for recurring budget items such as raises.
The plan calls to consolidate the government’s various right-of-way and grounds maintenance efforts under a single department, Central Services. It also calls to sell underused city properties, fully implement an automated meter reading system, reassign underused vehicles and pass credit card fees on to customers.
Other aspects of the plan are simply realizing increased revenues, estimated at $5 million, and savings created by hiring an EMS provider, which reduced the need to Augusta Fire Department to respond to medical calls.
Commissioner Wayne Guilfoyle said the plan didn’t go far enough to fill the $10 million general fund hole created by use of one-time Rescue Plan funds.
The plan is “different from what I thought we would have been given,” Guilfoyle said. “It’s assumed money.”
“What a lot of us were probably expecting was something that’s sustainable,” Commissioner Brandon Garrett said, but called the plan “a hell of a start.”
Garrett and Guilfoyle aren’t members of Administrative Services, which recommended adopting the plan 4-0.
Commissioner Jordan Johnson said the proposal was a “pretty nice plan,” especially its consolidation of maintenance functions.
The commission will consider Mayor Garnett Johnson’s proposal for city departments to model 5% and 10% budget cuts next week, the commissioner said.
The Finance committee referred the mayor’s budget item to the full commission next week.
The committee recommended approving the rightsizing plan except for one section estimated to save up to $1.6 million annually. Douse termed it “position control.” That part of the plan awaits completion of an ongoing city classification and compensation study.
Commissioner Sean Frantom called the plan “a working document” and voted to support it, joined by Johnson and commissioners Tony Lewis and Francine Scott.
“The bubbles and silos – some of this stuff is not working,” he said. “Make sure department heads that (the plan) currently affects understand that.”
Committee refers hotel ordinance to workshop
With a dozen Augusta hoteliers in the gallery, the public services committee referred action on an ordinance regulating motel guests who stay on without paying to a future workshop.
Planning Director Carla DeLaney said Augusta already had an ordinance on the books that addressed the issue. Commissioners questioned why no one had mentioned the ordinance during weeks of public debate over the sheriff’s role in evicting squatting guests.
Sheriff Richard Roundtree, who spoke at the meeting Tuesday, said the sheriff’s office treats hotels like any other private property. Owners must take out warrants to get the sheriff’s office to act, he said.
Longtime Augusta hotelier Andy Sharma said the ongoing discussion about how to remove guests who don’t pay continues to miss the point. “Every other sheriff that we’ve been under has treated it as theft of services,” he said.
Panhandling ordinance sent to workshop
The committee also referred action on a panhandling ordinance to a workshop held within three weeks.
Frantom, who brought Columbia County’s panhandling ordinance to the commission, said cameras had captured a bus dropping off homeless people from outside Augusta, and one individual said he was from Macon.
General Counsel Wayne Brown said he hadn’t “found anything wrong” with Columbia County’s ordinance, but argued Augusta needs to develop its own, with input from departments such as Planning and Engineering.
“You are supposed to lay a solid academic foundation for the ordinance,” Brown said, “dictated by the need.”
Jordan Johnson warned that enforcing the ordinance would “lead to the mass arrest of people” by the sheriff’s office.
“I’m never going to be interested in supporting an ordinance that criminalizes poverty,” he said.
New jail wing would cost $38 million
Roundtree presented a current price tag for a new 192-bed pod at the Charles B. Webster Detention Center: $38 million.
Each day, the jail houses approximately 300 more than its 1,000-inmate capacity, and every one is accused of a felony or violent crime, Roundtree said.
Guilfoyle requested the city seek a funding source for the new wing, based on overcrowding at the jail and faulty air conditioning and locks.
Deputy Finance Director Tim Schroer said the project could go in the SPLOST 9 package, for which collections would start in 2027. Or it could potentially be funded through a bond issue by the Urban Redevelopment Agency, he said. The URA issued bonds for the municipal building renovations and Beacon Station development by deeming the areas as blighted.
Attorney Jim Plunkett, who served as bond attorney on most city bond deals, said the jail “is a little more interesting” in terms of being called a pocket of blight. But if so, “we could come up with a plan to redevelop that pocket,” he said.
