Before and after a Cobb tax increase was approved by county commissioners last month, those in favor of the millage hike have touted expanded additional police officer positions and law enforcement body cameras, restored library hours and more funding to maintain county medians and rights of way.
Cobb commissioner Bob Ott, who voted against the budget in a 3-2 vote (along with JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb) hasn’t said much publicly about the 1.7-mills increase, other than extended remarks he gave right before the vote.
On Friday, he published those comments (excerpted below) “because many people have asked me why I voted no.”
In his weekly newsletter, he also said he’s been asked how his District 2, which includes East Cobb, will benefit from the increase. South Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid, who supported the tax increase, talked about the police, library and DOT funding in her newsletter to constituents, and said the 1.7-mills increase was “indeed a compromise.”
Ott, who maintained during months of grueling budget deliberations that he wanted to see more proposed spending cuts before he would support any increase, mentioned only one benefit for District 2:
“1 DOT work crew”
Included in the $454 million general fund budget for fiscal year 2019 is $1.4 million for Cobb DOT mowing crews, which had been reduced to one countywide during the recession. Each of the four commission districts will have a dedicated crew, and the operations will be moved in-house for year-round work.
The county has been outsourcing mowing crews for $1.1 million a year, but they worked only for six months, from spring to fall.
Commissioners have said that constituents have complained about overgrown medians and rights-of-way as much as almost anything.
Related coverage
- Why just saying ‘no’ isn’t enough
- Cobb GOP opposes tax increase
- Commissioners to citizens: ‘We hear you’
- Town halls conclude as public hearings begin
- 2018 Cobb tax digest a record $36.7 billion
A few highlights from Ott’s budget adoption-night comments include his opposition to how the need tax hike was presented and his frustration that previous proposals to fund new police cars and find budget savings were ignored, as well as his concerns over looming pension obligations. Ott supports moving from a defined benefit system to a defined contribution plan:
I am disappointed in how the need for a tax increase has been presented. Putting forward to the residents the closure of the busiest parks, the busiest libraries, extension services, 4-H and Master Gardeners. This tugged on the heartstring of all residents, young and old, and the mission became ‘save us’ and the focus was off what the budget is actually made up of.
I too have had many emails and calls; not a day goes by where I get into work and there are another batch of emails. I am not here to tell you the ratio of those for and those against but here is my take away – when I write back to them or call them back I explain my position, I tell them that the services that are being threatened to be taken away were never proposals that came before the board. If they took the time to think about this – why would the board continue to buy more park space if the intent was to close parks, why are new libraries being built only to close them?
I proposed in the 2016 SPLOST that 9 million additional dollars be added to buy the police even more new vehicles than originally proposed. This was removed to pay for other’s wants of things not the NEEDS of the county. I even agreed to less money for District 2 sidewalks to pay for these cars and I was turned down.
When we had the [budget] retreat in October Commissioner Weatherford and I came up, on our own, [with] a way to save 50 million out of the budget. Some of my proposals were to consolidate the libraries that are under-used, outsource some departments in the County and to work on transportation to run fewer buses, maximize their capacity and look at the utilization of UBER and LYFT vouchers to take people to the main lines of the fixed routes.
None of our proposals or plans are included in this budget.
To all county staff, I value you and I do think that you work hard at your jobs. I am not the bad person when I talk about your pension. I will never agree to take what you have earned and put into your pension, but this pension plan has to change, it is simply not sustainable in its current form. I proposed a change 4 years ago. The pension is at its worst funding level it has ever been. Many companies have changed – large multi-billion companies that were hit hard in the recession changed – but not Cobb.
I proposed in this budget discussion to stop funding this type of pension – this does not mean that the employees lose what they put into their plan. It will be there when you retire. But the county needs to move into a 401K plan where the county can put in a percentage and the employees can put in money that they feel is appropriate to reach their goal in retirement. The money will then be yours and in your name.
You can read his full statment at this link, which includes further thoughts on employee salary increases, county vehicle replacement costs, additional police positions, libraries, parks and recreation, animal services and more.
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