Brantley County Makes Strides in Protecting Natural Resources

There is a write-up on Brantley County in this month's Coastal Management News, which is put out by NOAA. The article is on page 5. Check it out!

January 2011 Regular Meeting

The Commission handled a variety of items during their first meeting of 2011, that lasted a little under an hour.

On the consent agenda the Commission approved items to:
• Appoint Commissioner O’Quinn as Vice Chairman for the Year 2011,
• Approve Seeking Proposals for County Attorney Services,
• Approve the adoption of Resolution for Continuation of E-911 Fees for landline and cell phone,
• Approve Appointments of Pat Dyson and Linton Herrin to the Development Authority Board,
• Approve Appointment of Commissioner O’Quinn as Ex-Officio Member of the Development Authority Board,
• Approve Part-time Real Property Appraiser Position in Tax Assessors Office thru March, 2011, 24 hours per week; Cost not to exceed $6,000,

On the regular agenda, the Commission adopted a resolution keeping Southeastern Bank as the depository of County funds and providing authorization to sign checks.

The paving projects that have been recently bid out were discussed. The low bid for the parking lot on the South side of the courthouse was Ricketson Construction at $107,892.15. This bid was approved by the Commission, with funds for the project coming from SPLOST funds. The low bid for the Mt. Calvary paving project was Littlefield Construction for $223,758.62. This bid was approved by the Commission, with funds for the project coming from SPLOST funds. An analysis of current projects and remaining Road SPLOST funds was provided by the County Manager and the Chairman. County Manager Parrish Barwick explained that there is currently $2,567,000 worth of projects in the queue, including the Mt. Calvary and Courthouse parking lot. With the current balance in the Road SPLOST account, remaining SPLOST funds to be collected and DOT funds available for the Waynesville Project, Buster Walker and Mt. Calvary, these funds total approximately $2,720,000. With projects to date coming in at or below budgeted amount, the Commission is confident that all the projects in the queue can be completed, leaving about $240,000 in the SPLOST account. Some of these funds will be dispersed to the cities and some will be spent on Raybon East for rock and paving.

The Airport Executive Director moved funds around in her 2011 budget and made arrangements for the final payment for the attorney’s fees so this item was removed from the agenda.

The County Manager explained that plans were underway for the County to contract out the different pieces of the concession stand and bathroom building at the Satilla Fields Recreation Park that was constructed using Recreation SPLOST dollars, capital outlay funds and County employees. With the County purchasing the materials and managing the project, the building can be built for less than the $160,000 remaining in the Recreation SPLOST. The permitting process is underway by Golden Isles Engineering for the new Boat Ramp project on Highway 82 East in Atkinson. The County will be clearing some brush and doing some cleanup work in preparation for that construction. The area will be closed off during construction for safety reasons. The grant to better define the 100 year flood plain as requested by the FLUTAC committee and Planning Commission was also discussed. This has to be reviewed and completed by Monday so the County and consultants will have to move swiftly to meet this deadline. The Grant for the Walking/Nature trail at the proposed Waynesville Recreation Park is also due at the same time. These have been put together and are under review. Illness and schedules have made it difficult to get everyone together to finalize these so that they can be submitted.

The COLA raise for County employees was discussed next. The proposal discussed at the work session to pay a $500 bonus and day off with pay in lieu of a 3% across the board raise was found to be illegal. The County Manager gave the Commissioners an in depth analysis of the comparison of a number of alternatives from the $500 bonus to $0.40 per hour raise to the 3% raise across the board. Commissioners settled on an $832 raise for all full time salaried employees and a $0.40 per hour raise for all hourly employees. This will not include Commissioners or Constitutional Officers.

The Commission discussed utilizing the March Special Election to ask the voters to approve the next SPLOST referendum so that the cost of the election is shared by the City of Nahunta for the Nahunta precinct. Unfortunately, the timing will not allow this to happen. There is a mandatory 10 day interval between the adoption of a referendum and notification going to the cities. The referendum would have to be at the printers next Tuesday, which doesn’t allow for the ten days. The Commission can take this up later in the year. The SPLOST collections run for 50 calendar months, or for the specified amount of defined dollar collection. With the anticipated changes that the legislature “may” make to sales tax collections this session, the SPLOST collections could accelerate bringing the SPLOST collections to a close sooner than expected. The calendar months end in 2012, so a renewal in 2011 is not grossly premature.
This will be taken up by the Commission at a later time.

The Commission next approved the Public Defender’s Office Budget and 2011 indigent Defense Agreement Renewal.

The Commission discussed filling the vacant 911 department head position. Tim Crews is currently serving in that capacity temporarily. The position is vacant and the salary for that position is budgeted, so filling the position is budget neutral. The Commission approved the County manager putting that position out to be filled.

The Commission went into executive session for Personnel, after which they took no action.

Hortense New Fire Station

The Hortense VFD has broken ground on its new fire substation positioned on 110 North, just south of Highway 32. The property, donated by Enoch Smith of Smith Land Sales, has been cleared and dirt is being moved in. The metal building company that the County has contracted with to build the 5 new fire stations using USDA grant and loan money, has reviewed the site and provided the needed amount of fill dirt. The County inspectors have reviewed the site for septic and well locations. In coming weeks, neighbors should be able to see the building coming up and Hortense expanding its coverage.

This effort was undertaken by the Commission last year in an effort to reduce the response time for emergency services and to drive down the ISO rating for citizens homes, which has proven to save many home owners as much as 40-50% on their annual homeowners insurance.

Congratulations to Mike Carver and the team at Hortense Volunteer Fire Department.

Ronald E. Ham
Chairman - Brantley County Commission

The County Commission has exchanged property with a land owner adjacent to the County courthouse to gain more frontage on the side street facing the courthouse.

For now, the ride share will be enlarged with some new fencing and rock. The property is a prime location should the County decide down the road to build a County courthouse annex to consolidate services at that location.

The County would like to thank Coach Pryce Brooker and his family for their cooperation in the exchange. This property was exchanged in kind with no payment for the property.

Ronald Ham
Chairman - Brantley County Commission

January 2011 Work Session

In the first meeting of the year, the Commissioners handled a baker’s dozen of issues in a little over an hour.

First, Commissioners Brian Hendrix and Chris Harris were welcomed to the team. Next, was a discussion on the appointment of a new Vice Chairman. It was recommended that Commissioner Greg O’Quinn serve as the new Vice Chairman. The Board placed this on the consent agenda.

The Board also placed an item on the consent agenda to go out for bids for legal services.

The Board placed an item on the regular agenda to discuss the depository for County funds. The County Clerk was asked to put together a list of fees and interest rates that are currently in place with Southeastern Bank and what is offered by the Heritage Bank.

The Board placed resolutions for the wireless E-911 and the wired E-911 telephone services for the County on the consent agenda. The County manager was asked if the issues that had been brought to light at 911 were being addressed. He explained that the company CallWorks had met with himself, the Chairman and others before Thanksgiving. The company that originally provided the software had been acquired by Callworks. Their focus was to get a patch installed to resolve the major issue which was installed after Thanksgiving. Then, a major software release would be available in late January that would provide some enhancements and resolve other lingering issues. This will also allow the company to get all their clients on a common software “release” system which will be better for all customers.

The Board next discussed the 2010 financial picture. Where formal reports are not yet available, the Chairman reported the County Manager had delivered the check and paid off the line of credit balance which was about $250,000. All of that money had come from the General Fund which was the account where all of last year and previous year’s monies were kept. The Money Market account had been used to house all of this year’s tax money and none of that was used to pay off the debt. So, Brantley County starts 2011 owing no debt for operational needs. This was a huge accomplishment for the whole leadership team including Commissioners, Constitutional Officers, Department Heads and staff. Financial reports will be available at the regular meeting and this item was placed on the regular agenda.

The 2011 COLA raise for all employees was placed on the regular agenda. Commissioner Edgy suggested that the County give each employee a personal day off with pay and a $500 bonus in December instead of giving a standard 3% raise across the board. The goal in this approach would be to help those with lower pay rates in these hard economic times and save the County about $60,000. With a percentage raise approach, the more your salary, the higher your raise. The Board had previously discussed a $0.45 per hour raise instead of a percentage raise which has a similar affect. But, that approach got complex when dealing with salaried personnel. The other Commissioners didn’t object to the bonus idea, but wanted to see the numbers and an analysis, so the item was placed on the regular agenda. The Clerk and the County Manager will prepare the numbers for review.

Next was a discussion about the two vacancies on the Development Authority. In previous talks with the Development Authority Board Chair and Executive Director, two names were offered and others petitioned. An item was placed on the consent agenda to appoint Linton Herrin to one of the vacant positions and Pat Diason to the other position.

Next, the Board took up a discussion of the remaining $17,231 in legal fees that the Airport Authority has remaining on their debt to Attorney Wright for work with the bonding company and airport vendors. The Airport Authority Director will prepare some proposals for how these funds can be paid from her 2011 budget and bring them to the regular meeting. The total for engineering and legal services paid in late December and early January will total approximately $60,000. The legal fees are supposed to be reimbursed by the bond company, Berkley, based on language in the bond, but the engineering fees are the County’s responsibility.

The County manager reported on three items next. The concession and restroom building at the new recreation park was first. The only way to complete this with the remaining funds is to manage it in-house and have the County purchase materials. The Waynesville Recreation Park Nature Trail Grant was discussed. A multi-year vision of the park prepared by Jamie Osteen was viewed by the Commissioners and DNR. The grant will have to be put together quickly and significant changes will have to be made to the design, but Jennifer Kline felt like the County had a better than average chance to get a $100,000 grant which would be 50-50 with the County’s match coming from in kind services and very little money. That kind of grant, along with the timber sale, would allow the park to come together over the coming years. Next was the timeline for the Atkinson boat ramp. The DNR has released the area for work but only those certified in State boat ramp projects can work on that part of the project, and anyone performing work in the area has to be briefed on species of animal and plant life to avoid damaging.

The paving projects were discussed. Dude Circle and Satilla Road punch list items are complete. The Waynesville Road project is plugging along with some OREMC power line work to be done around the beaver pond area. In the spring, this project will pick up speed. The Buster Walker clearing and grubbing is well under way and will be completed in coming weeks. The Boots Harrison base work is complete and will be finalized once Seaboard Construction is ready to move in. The mile plus that has been under construction on this road should be paved in coming weeks. A total out of pocket cost for this mile of road will be compiled for the Board's review. The County lacks one parcel of ROW on Mt. Calvary, which Commissioners are working through. The Raybon East project survey will be completed so that ROW can be acquired and the road crew can start on that project once some general backlog of road items is cleared from the holidays. The bids for the parking lot on the South side of the Courthouse are due in later this week and will be taken up at next week’s meeting. Bids for Mt. Calvary are due in January as well.

Open records requests and records retention were discussed. The Commission had reviewed a proposal by counsel last year on a formal procedure to open records requests. The Clerk was asked to contact the County attorney and ask him to revive that document for review. This item was added to the regular agenda. The records retention policy from the Georgia Archives that was adopted by the Commission several years ago was also discussed specifically as it pertains to emails. The section that pertains to emails makes it clear that it is the “content” of the email that dictates the retention mandate. There are emails of a transient nature that need be stored no longer than their useful life. There are others that, due to their content, are required to be stored for a number of years. The Chairman had communicated a suggestion to Commissioners and constitutional officers where they develop a folder system both in their email folder for the email and on their hard drives so that emails and attachments received and sent can be stored by content (i.e. budget, personnel, road dept, EMS, EMA, Dev Auth, VFD, etc). This would allow for an easier search and group archive when that time comes. This would allow for more timely responses. Above all, the County should be forthcoming with information and not give the indication that the County is attempting to hide anything and certainly follow the standards set forth by the records retention policy.

The Tax Assessor (TA) board Chair Billy Lee and Chief Appraiser Carey Lamb gave the Commission an update. The Tax Assessor’s office has nearly completed the GIS work with Southern Geographic Solutions. Citizens using the TA web site which is available from the County web site at www.brantleycounty.org should have seen a significant improvement in the quantity and quality of data. A plotter has been relocated to the TA office allowing them to print new high resolution graphic maps of County parcels with 2007 flight/aerial data. The cost of the maps is still being defined but will probably be around $15-$20 based on what counties around Brantley are charging. The new computers that were approved last month are in and operational, helping to improve productivity and morale in the office. The new property appraiser, Sean Chapman, is on the job and adding tremendously to the team’s efforts.

The TA group is starting the process of riding the ENTIRE County in search of mobile homes that have no stickers and have possibly gone without paying taxes. They will leave a door hanger on any trailer not properly displaying a sticker. Taxes and penalties may apply to these. They will also be identifying trailers that are dilapidated and in need of removal or destruction. This process has never been done in Brantley County before.

Chief Appraiser Carey Lamb closed with a review of Senate Bill 346. This legislation will require that a property value assessment notice go to every parcel owner in Brantley County. This represents over 13,000 mailings. In the past, the law only required that property owners be sent a notice if there was a change in property value or ownership. With the new law, every property owner will get a property assessment notice every year with an “anticipated tax amount” on it. Since no budget for the County or school board will be set in June when the notices go out, the previous year’s millage will be used. A larger concern is that right now no credits, deductions or exemptions that some property owners receive will be included in this estimate tax bill amount. So, in many cases, this estimated tax amount will be wrong. The statewide computer system that many smaller counties, like Brantley, use for the Tax Assessor’s office has no way to accept the exemptions. A reprieve from this portion of the law is being requested by many counties until the software can be updated so that tens of thousands of dollars aren’t spent to send bad information to property owners but this reprieve is unlikely. Other changes in SB346 were also discussed.

The Commission placed an item on the consent agenda to allow the Tax Assessor’s office use up to $6,000 for part time help so that they can catch up the records in their office and get the digest out on time this year. In the budget process later this year, manpower for the TA office will be taken under advisement.

Chairman’s Corner

Happy New Year!!!!

After 24 months of digging, scraping, saving and collecting...we’ve made it. Thursday at 4pm the County Manager, Parrish Barwick, took a $250,000 check out of this year’s tax account to the bank in Waycross and paid off the line of credit completely. That left just a few thousand dollars in the general fund account which holds only this year's tax money. All checks have been posted and written for this year’s bills.

In a separate money market account, we have all of the money that Tax Commissioner, Pat Tompkins and her team have collected for next year’s taxes and operations. Hats are off to Mrs. Pat and her team for all their hard work. And hats off to everyone for driving revenue at the jail and EMS and for everyone who helped hold down costs. As of this writing, Brantley County owes NO debt for operating capital and we did NOT use any of next year’s tax dollars to pay off that debt. We need to come in next week and get everything finalized, but we have made it.

Now we start the process of continually operating under a balanced budget while driving costs out of the system to help drive down the burden on the tax payers.

Part II of the story is while "WE" (all Commissioners, Constitutional Officers, Department Heads and Staff) eliminated millions in debt in 2 years, the leadership team has also:
• Started paving 13 miles of roads all over the County with SPLOST dollars,
• Got the traffic light in Atkinson installed two years ahead of schedule, eliminating a huge safety issue in our community,
• Used our road department to improve and prepare roads for paving,
• Launched the new jail that is paid for with SPLOST dollars and staffed it to hold other county's prisoners, which yields $50,000 a month in revenue today,
• Nearly completed the new recreation facility, Satilla Fields, using our road department and SPLOST dollars,
• Launched a new Boat Ramp and Camp Ground project at the river in Atkinson on 82 using a major local donation, SPLOST dollars and grant funds,
• Upgraded police vehicles, buying more cars for less money using USDA grant funding and lower interest rate financing,
• Upgraded road equipment like graders, dozers, dump trucks and support vehicles for less money by using USDA grants, loans and government surplus,
• Upgraded ALL ambulances using grant funding and budget funds, upgraded the main station for EMS in Nahunta and implemented a distributed strategy for housing EMS about the County to reduce their response time,
• Launched a County Web Site to bring transparency to County Government and ease of access to meeting summaries, access to all departments, detailed financial reports and much more,
• Launched Web Sites dedicated to the Tax Assessors and Tax Commissioners offices for the public to access records and to eventually pay tax bills online,
• Started Digitizing over 4,500 parcels that were backlogged for over 5 years in the Tax Assessors' Office, importing them into the online and County computer systems,
• Worked with the Tax Assessors group to upgrade computer systems and incorporate other underutilized equipment into their office,
• Launched enhanced E911 systems, equipment and processes that, while all these need fine tuning, are allowing Brantley to move forward and are driving revenue to make the department more self sufficient,
• Launched house to house garbage and eliminated decades of dumpsters, dumpster diving and all the mess and expense that went along with them,
• Redefined the fire tax districts and started the process of significantly expanding coverage with 5 new substations to eventually drive down homeowner's insurance premiums by lowering ISO ratings,
• Launched efforts with the Development Authority to bring industry to Brantley County by fully funding the Development Authority and working as other counties do to attract industry,
• Revived the stagnant Airport Project.
• Cleaned out the halls and refurbished the courthouse with a new roof, carpet, security system and fixed the clock, plus a new parking lot is in the works,
• Traded for property across the street for more parking and/or a courthouse annex one day to expand the courthouse footprint and consolidate services at that location.
• Built and equipped the new records room outside the courthouse,
• Acquired property from the Board of Education for, and assumed the commitment to, the people of Waynesville to erect a satellite recreation facility in Waynesville similar to the one in Schlatterville,
• And much more…….
Part three of this story is that through all of this the Commission has been able to lower the millage rate each of the last two years. While tax bills went up because the Governor canceled the homestead exemption tax credit, we controlled everything within our power. It is worth noting that this was accomplished in one of the worst economic environments of our lives.

Unless we run into cash flow issues from tax money being slow to come in, we should be able to go through the year without having to borrow any money for operations. But, we'll take it one step at time. Congratulations to everyone for their hard work and dedication. 2011 is going to be a good year.

Looking forward, my recommendation to the Commission is going to be to focus on bringing closure to the projects we have in the process and hold off on launching a lot of new projects this year. If that be the Board’s desire, we'll still have a very busy and productive year.

Above all, we need to thank the good Lord for his blessing on our County, our community and our families. It has been a year with great challenges and still we have been very blessed and to Him goes the glory!

Happy New Year!

Ronald E. Ham
Chairman - Brantley County Commission.