The Governor has demonstrated once again that he apparently doesn’t understand how local governments work, what their purpose is, how their budgets are established, and how the decisions about revenues and expenditures are decided. He seems to be following closely in the footsteps of Speaker Richardson who proved last year, without any doubt, that he doesn’t understand or have a regard for local governments, nor does he care to. The Mayor of Atlanta gets hammered for a shortfall in revenue and she is vilified, but now, less than four months after the Governor signs his approval of the state budget, his revenue estimates are off by almost 2 billion dollars, that’s with a B, and there is no outcry. It looks to me like someone should ask how that happened. Was the economy not in trouble in March? Should not the buck stop at the governor’s desk? But then the governor says it’s not his fault; it’s those incompetent city and county folks who have messed everything up.

The administration strategy has become very clear. Although I’m a little slow, it has now become obvious even to me. They begin to cut, not their expenditures, but the funds they direct to local governments. The focus of those cuts in the last few years has been education, but beginning last year they shifted their focus to all local governments. Case in point, funds they were collecting and returning to our citizens under the homeowner tax relief grant program are now being withheld forcing local governments to either cut more expenses or increase revenues with a tax increase.

How does this work? An example; they cut state funds to education, then when we, as a community, decide we want to keep our Spanish classes or music and arts or whatever, and decide to raise our taxes to compensate for the shortfall, they point the finger at us and announce our budgets are out of control. We are accused of incompetence concerning managing or deciding how we should spend our money. As the Governor stated “(local governments) have never approached it from the standpoint that they have to tighten their belts”. I invite the governor to come to my community, stand in front of our citizens and tell us we don’t know how to manage our budget. We carefully plan our budgets every year and make hard choices, in front of citizens (not in some back office at the capital), about cuts and tax increases. If we get out of alignment with our constituents, there are two opportunities every month (our council meetings) and an election every other year for us as citizens to straighten it out. And we can’t hide in China or on a plane to Spain. Our mayor’s office is out on the street corner.

So I ask the governor to work with us, not blame us. The solutions to our problems are not under the gold dome, they are out here on the streets with us. I ask the Governor to join us in Decatur for a forum to address this divisive approach. Let’s talk, not point fingers.

It appears that state revenues for the year will be as much as one billion dollars below projections. Times are hard and we are all struggling and wondering when will it end. So the State of Georgia, with the responsibility to the Governor must find a way to cut expenses. A few years back the state created a program where it would collect taxes from us and redistribute them to local governments (cities and counties) in the form of a Homeowners Tax Relief Grant(HTRG). Great idea. We as homeowners get some relief from property taxes, which incidentally is the major source of revenue (school’s and city) for the City of Decatur. Now how do get this relief? Local governments issue a tax bill with an item shown as HTRG which reduces our tax bills (about $251.96 for me). Most governments in Georgia have already issued tax bills and listed the credits. Local governments get this money from the state by sending a bill later in the year. Now the state says, “Whoops, no money!” so we as a local government will not receive these funds. How much is it for Decatur? General Fund $370,000, Capital Fund $36,000, DDA Fund $14,000 and the school fund $683,000. For the city of Decatur a total of $1,103,000 (estimated for 2008). Now we have already made and approved our budgets so we how do we make up this lost revenue? For Decatur, we have a second bill yet to issue so we remove the credit on our 2^nd bill and show it as an increase of (in my case) $251.96, or we have keep the credit and cut services. So, the state makes a choice to cut expenses for lost revenue. Oh no, wait, it was not the state that had to cut services or increase taxes, it was your local government. Pretty easy choice for the governor; just take it from someone else.

Last year we fought hard against a proposal for the state to collect a sales tax and redistribute it to us for property tax with a promise that they would always try hard to keep our revenues at the same level. And we said, “We don’t trust you,” and they wondered why!!!! Some relief program: it’s dropped at the first sign of trouble because it is easy for them to do.

Congratulations to Commissioner Burrell Ellis on his victory in Tuesday’s election. I was an active supporter of Commissioner Ellis and believe that he will do an outstanding job as CEO. We had some great candidates this year but I think we, as voters, selected the best for Dekalb. It will certainly be a different type of governing than we have been accustomed to over the last few years. If we are to move this county forward, our focus must be on cooperation and not conflict. Our tax money should be spent on things that improve our quality of life and not on law suits. Since the HOST lawsuit began in 1999 the city has spent over $700,000 of taxpayer money on that particular lawsuit. Someone should ask Dekalb Countyhow much they have spent. I would be willing to wager it has be 4 to 5 times that amount and that is my tax money also. For the past eight years, we as residents of Dekalb have found it difficult to have a meaningful conversation with our top elected official. While we will probably not be able to agree on every issue that comes up, we can agree to talk and we can agree on one thing: we all want a better Dekalb. Dekalb County is a great place to live and work, not in spite of our cities, but because of our cities. Welcome to our new CEO; January can’t get here soon enough. Let’s talk!