The Harlem City Council has approved the city’s budget for fiscal year 2026. During the council’s meeting, Monday night, city manager Debra Moore told councilmembers that the city would be seeing some increases next year, including an 18% bump in employee health insurance.
The budget is about 33% more than last year’s, coming in at over $6.1 million, Moore said, which does not include a proposed rise in the 9.35 millage rate. In 2026 the city will make its first payment on the debt service for its multi-purpose park project, an amount just above a million.
Earlier in the meeting, the council had approved a bid of about $1.3 million to Shearer-Mutimer Construction of Evans for work on the multi-park project. The council would later vote in favor of an amendment to the city’s zoning ordinance regarding Planned Unit Development (PUD) districts.
One amendment, for which Councilmember Daniel Bellavance was the only vote in opposition, removed a 9,000 square foot minimum for PUD lot sizes and the requirement that city council approve exceptions to that minimum.
Lauren McCord returned before the council during the meeting’s public speaking portion to speak on the case involving the shooting of a three-year-old in January. McCord, a Grovetown resident and the child’s aunt, has come to council meetings several times before decrying the Harlem Police Department’s handling of the case.
When Councilmember John Thigpen asked McCord, at the end of her address, what she expected of the city, she said for the city to “hold people accountable for not following your record procedure.”
When Thigpen then asked why she believes the city had not done so, she replied that records she had received confirmed her view, which Thigpen said was her opinion.
McCord reviewed a seven-week back-and-forth with the city that included, she said, delayed responses to document requests for call logs and disparate answers about whether Harlem PD contacted the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS). When the city finally provided the requested call-logs, McCord said to the councilmembers, they showed that DFCS was never contacted.
“If it takes seven weeks of contradictions, a DA story that wasn’t true, and a last minute promise to review procedures just to see one call log in a child shooting case, what does it say about how much truth the city is willing to hide from everyone else?” McCord said.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering general reporting for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com
