With two newly elected possible swing voices coming on the Augusta Commission in just a few weeks, that board has tepidly begun negotiations on next year’s budget.
We use the word “tepidly” because the current commission is well aware that any lame duck-era promises made early in the process may have to be revisited once commissioners-elect Tina Slendak and Don Clark take office.
The current commission is also well aware that the honeymoon spending party started by Odie Donald in 2020, is long over. Thanks to the irretrievably broken city charter, taxpayers are waking up to realize city spending is out of control.
Yes, it appears that the commission is finally experiencing the effects of the now year’s-long taxpayer hangover.
The windfall that was the federal Covid pandemic bailout funding is but a distant memory. Meanwhile, the IRS is standing on the front stoop looking to collect the multi-million dollar fine they levied against the city. There are no more quarters to be found in the sofa cushions, and the IRS does not accept gift cards.
An avalanche of past semantical cliches, or “Donaldisms,” will no longer placate a public that is still digging out from under a hurricane. Terms like “baked-in” or brain-baffling blather in the form of phrases, such as “automatically adjusted to provide a stopgap funding mechanism that will quantitatively ease unpredicted budgetary shortfalls,” will have the same effect as offering up a cake recipe in the midst of an egg and butter shortage.
If the 2025 commission wants to be successful in climbing out of the budget morass, then members need to attempt to earn back citzen trust by keeping as many “public” meetings open to the public as possible and make an honest show of transparency.
The policy of handing out “golden parachutes” to employees and department directors, most of whom have long overstayed their welcome, must come to a firm halt. Meanwhile, employees who have proven their worth should be provided an environment that is free of the hiring and disciplinary practices of nepotism of the past.
Commissioners need to pay attention to Administrator Tamika Allen and take seriously her recommendations that will ease inefficiency and redundancy. Allen knows that it should only take one department head and a couple of employees to repair a pothole; so, instead of the wasteful practice of launching a pothole repair committee that will recommend three department head’s minimum involvement, a citizens advisory board to oversee the process, a DEI survey to establish inclusivity by demanding a work crew consist of only one worker and five others who are only trained to lean on a shovel.
Rather than cow-towing to whiny department heads who chronically complain their slice of the billion-dollar pie is not large enough, the commission needs to force through measures of accountability by which department heads must justify every line-item of spending in their department with documentable certitude.
Yes, department heads need to be keeping and submitting their receipts, just like the mayor and sheriff.
We also encourage anyone who might be on the short list to sit on the upcoming Charter Review Committee to follow this current budget process closely and use what they learn to codify the good government approach as set forth by the mayor and his staff.
