(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
The News in Brief:
– There are 139 days left in King Hardie Davis mayoral reign. Thank goodness.
– Attorneys for convicted felon and former Augusta Commissioner Sammie Sias have appealed Sias’ conviction for destroying government records and lying to an FBI agent and are seeking acquittal or a new trial on grounds of insufficient evidence.
– Augusta commissioners continue to badger Gold Cross EMS about providing receipts about their ambulance calls while refusing to even ask the mayor for his receipts.
MORE: Sylvia Cooper: Sias trial shows if you strut like a peacock, you can get plucked like one
Limbo Says it All
The Augusta Commission is in limbo when it comes to setting this year’s tax rate because they’re stalled on advertising a rate that will raise property taxes on most folks and, on the alternative, rolling the rate back to avoid a tax hike.
Limbo is an uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution. It means “unfinished, incomplete, suspended.”
Well, that certainly describes the current state of affairs on the commission. But limbo is a game and a dance, too, in which contestants bend backwards to go under a horizontal bar, and the one who goes the lowest wins.
But since I didn’t see anybody bending over backward to win over the other side during two special called meetings last week, I’ll have to go with the first meaning although the vision of commissioners seeing how low they could go under a horizontal bar to the beat of “Limbo Rock” would be a sight to see.
Setting a tax rate and advertising it along with a five-year history of the county’s digest in the newspaper is not a game and nothing to dance around with, however. It’s the law with serious consequences for not getting the completed digest to the State Department of Revenue for approval so the tax bills can go out on time and tax collections can begin. Cash flow, don’t you know. And since the Richmond County School Board’s and city’s taxes due are printed on one bill, the city’s failure to get that ad in the paper by Tuesday’s deadline could cause financial disruptions to both bodies.
MORE: Sylvia Cooper: Davis shares recent work on gun violence with commission
Let’s Recap
Commissioners Brandon Garrett, Sean Frantom, John Clarke, Alvin Mason and Catherine McKnight lacked the six votes needed last week to roll back the millage rate to a state-prescribed level that would keep property taxes at or near last year’s levels.
The rollback rate calculated by the state would leave the city about a half-million dollars short of what it’s budgeted to spend for 2022, Finance Director Donna Williams told commissioners. She also told them repeatedly they could go ahead and advertise a rate increase to get the process started and satisfy state law but could lower it before a final vote on August 30. But it can’t be increased.
Commissioners Ben Hasan, Jordan Johnson, Francine Scott, Dennis Williams and Bobby Williams voted to proceed with advertising a tax rate that would raise taxes on properties that have increased in value since last year, but the motion was defeated when Davis voted no to break a 5-5 tie in hopes, no doubt, of polishing up his tarnished image in the waning days of his mayoralty by acting like he cares about taxpayers’ money.
The owner of a house valued at $100,000 in suburban Augusta last year that’s been assessed at $118,000 this year would pay $68 more in 2022 property taxes. The owner of a house similarly valued in the urban services district of Augusta would pay $78 more.
Meanwhile, I think the citizens of Augusta should ask the Georgia Municipal Association and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia to refund the money the government spends to send them to conferences and training because they haven’t learned a thing about budgeting. Honestly, some of them sound like they just fell off the turnip truck, and there they’re in charge of a billion-dollar budget. Just think of that.
MORE: Sylvia Cooper: Time for Augusta commissioners to wake up and sing a new song
Quote of the Week
“We’re in the midst of talking about putting a 3 percent increase of salaries to our workers …. We feel that that’s probably appropriate, but the optics does not look well when you’re talking about raising the millage rate as well.”
_ Commissioner Alvin Mason
Cut the Reckless Spending
At the special called meetings, commissioners kept talking about the half-million-dollar shortfall a millage rate rollback would create. But really, that’s not a drop in the $53.8 million general-fund budget bucket they’re talking about. And there are so many ways to plug the hole.
For example:
– Cancel the 3 percent cost of living employee raises for the last three months of this year and save $500,000.
– Cancel the $1,000, $1,500, $2,000 and $2,500 retention bonuses city employees are being handed out in October. It would be enough to make up the budget deficit this year, next year and the year after that with money left over for an employee picnic. When this was discussed and voted on, I don’t recall anybody talking about the cost, but do the math. There are about 2,400 fulltime employees, and if they each get even the minimum bonus – which they won’t because the $1,000 bonus is for those making more than $70,000 a year – it’s a bundle. A big bundle.
– Fire the public information officers in various departments and have only one in the administrator’s office and save at least $100,000 a year. And if the one in the administrator’s office doesn’t improve with the public information, fire her too and save another $75,000.
– Fire Recreation and Parks Director Maurice McDowell and save $100,000. Or cancel the $7 million contract with the engineering firm commissioners hired to get the dilapidated recreation facilities up to snuff over the next five years. One or the other needs to go.
– Fire the Public Records Officer. That was one of Odie Donald’s big ideas to centralize all open records requests, probably so he could keep an eye on them, but the departments still have to do all of the work coming up with the requested documents.
– Sell one of the two fire trucks the fire department bought to operate its failed ambulance service.
– Ground Hardie Davis until Dec. 31.
– Or just fire everybody who doesn’t work and create a budget surplus. And the grass wouldn’t be any higher.
MORE: Sylvia Cooper: Dollars to donuts, most Augustans don’t care who’s the next mayor
Nice Work if You Can Get It
Three candidates have announced they’re running for Richmond County Tax Commissioner, but contrary to what some people think, A.K. Hasan isn’t one of them. I called him Saturday and asked him, and he said, “Absolutely not! I have not spoken to anyone. I have no intention of pursuing the tax commissioner job. Someone is trying to mislead people.”
Hasan also said the insinuation by some people that he drew himself out of District 6 during reapportionment is false.
“I was in the district in the plan the school board and the commission approved on a local level,” he said. “It was the state plan they approved in Atlanta that drew me out.”
But longtime Augusta CPA Sanford Loyd is running for tax commissioner.
“I’m going to run, and probably the first of September, I will have my signs and teams working to get in that office,” he said. “I have some suggestions and things to do that will be beneficial to the property owners and the government. I think there are some things that need to be changed. I really think that office needs to have minimal politics associated with it.”
Loyd has been a CPA in Augusta since 1984.
Also running are appointed Tax Commissioner Chris Johnson and Veronica Freeman Brown, finance director for the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
MORE: Sylvia Cooper: Deceptions, taxes, curses and snakes in the grass make for quite a week
A Test We All Want to Pass
Medicare wants us old fogeys to have a wellness checkup at least every year. The doctor’s office makes the appointment, and we have to go in and tell them we can still spell “cat” and remember three words to repeat back to them. One time, the nurse handed me a piece of paper and told me to fold it up and throw it on the floor. That was easy. They always ask me whether I’ve fallen in the last year, and I say, “Only when I get drunk.” They always laugh at that. You know me. Anything for a laugh.
I went for one of the checkups Friday. This time, the nurse handed me a piece of paper with a round circle in the middle and asked me to draw a clock face with the numbers and show the time was 10:30. That was easy. I put the long hand on 6 and the short one pointing to 10 but realized it should be between 10 and 11, so I changed it. The nurse was favorably impressed. She said she’d never had anybody do that before. I said I did it because I’m a borderline perfectionist. Not really a perfectionist, but close. That’s why I’m always late. I have to go back into the house three or four times when I’m leaving to make sure the dryer’s off, wipe off the counter or straighten up the bathroom because I might get in a wreck while I’m gone and get killed, and I wouldn’t want people coming to the house with a casserole for Ernie and think I was a slob. Not that I’d give a hoot by then. Still…
I asked my friend Floyd whether he went in for wellness tests, and he said he did.
“I had to name all the animals that started with the letter A,” he said. “I started out with aardvark and then abalone.”
“Abalone is not an animal,” I interrupted. “It’s a fish or something .”
“It’s an animal that lives in the water,” Floyd said.
So, I let that go.
Floyd said, “I wanted to say ‘A Cat,’ but they wouldn’t take that. So, I said anteater, alligator, anaconda, armadillo, Arctic Fox…”
“Hey, you’re cheating!” I said. “You’re looking online! I knew it when you said Arctic Fox.”
“They asked me if I fell down too,” Floyd said. “I didn’t have a good answer. I just said, ‘No.’”
MORE: Sylvia Cooper: With extra COVID money, city should be able to get maintenance done
When Debbie van Tuyll, executive editor at The Augusta Press, went for her wellness test last year, someone warned her they’d give her three words to remember, so she remembered to remember, but a couple of questions later, they asked her to repeat the words, and she remembered two.
“I was terrified they would skunk me and suggest I be sent to an Alzheimer facility,” she said. “They asked me all kinds of questions about whether I was being abused at home (as if I’d ever stand for that), had me count backward from 10 and asked a gazillion questions about sleeping. I was at the height of fighting spring allergies, and about as fuzzy-headed as I could be. Counting backwards would be hard in any case (numbers are not my thing), but when I’m on allergy meds and can barely breathe –argh!!!
Sylvia Cooper is a columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
