The Winder City Council on Tuesday night approved the city’s budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
But two nights of discussions leading up to the vote have raised questions about just who in the city government is controlling the purse strings.
The revelations began sometime before Monday’s council work session, when Councilman Sonny Morris found in his city hall mailbox a portion of a previously published legal notice announcing a public hearing and meeting about a $5 million loan the city had requested to build a new public works building.
That was the first time Morris, who has been on the council for 23 years, had heard anything about the U.S. Department of Agriculture loan or the new building.
He brought up the issue briefly Monday night at the end of a lengthy discussion over questions raised about the new water rates in the budget.
Mayor Chip Thompson said the new building would be built on city property off Miles Patrick Road.
Councilman David Maynard also asked about another capital item in the budget that the council knew nothing about — the planned relocation of some city facilities to enable the city government to then sell about eight acres it owns on May Street.
Thompson talked briefly about the reasoning behind that project.
But Maynard told the mayor that the council should be on the front end of such decisions —not finding out about them after they already have been planned by the administration.
The biggest revelation of the evening came, however, when finance director Leslie Henderson informed the council that once it approves each year’s budget, the mayor controls the spending of the millions of dollars funds appropriated in it.
UNDISCLOSED $5 MILLION LOAN APPROVED
Then on Tuesday, a Barrow Journal reporter discovered online a May 27 press release by the USDA announcing it had awarded the city $4.9 million in federal stimulus funds for the new public works facility.
Contacted Tuesday afternoon to see if that was the same project he had mentioned the previous night, Morris said it sounded like it was. He asked for a copy of the USDA press release and apparently shared it with other members of the council. At that night’s council meeting, Maynard confronted the mayor with the information. There was some backpeddling about just who had applied for the federal loan and when. Some staff said the loan had been requested by the former administration under Buddy Ouzts. However, the USDA press release states the loan will be funded through the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009, which was passed last year.
NO SPENDING LIMIT FOR WINDER MAYOR
When it was time to vote for the FY2011 budget, Maynard made a motion to reject it. He said he didn’t want to approve any more spending than is in the current year’s budget.
Councilman Bob Dixon initially seconded the motion but then withdrew it after the council was told the increase in the operating budget was due only to expenses associated with state and federally mandated environmental programs.
Though the budget passed on a 5-1 vote, with Maynard voting no, it was clear that the matter has not been settled.
The newspaper’s review of Winder’s charter and code of ordinances this week showed that Winder’s mayor has apparently unlimited spending power within budgeted appropriations.
By comparison, Auburn’s mayor has a $5,000 spending limit, and all county expenditures over $10,000 must be approved by the Barrow County Board of Commissioners.
In addition to having check-writing authority, the Winder mayor is the city’s designated purchasing agent.
And nowhere in the city code is there a formal purchasing ordinance adopted by the city council that establishes purchasing procedures and additional accountability for how taxpayers’ and utility customers’ dollars are spent.
WATER RATE VOTE DEFENDED
Despite questions raised about the substitution of a “lifeline” alternative structure for water rate hikes in the FY2011 budget, the council did not amend its earlier May 4 vote.
Instead of a flat 15-percent increase in the volume usage rates, the approved budget incorporates lower rates for the first 2,000 gallons of water used by residences each month but sharply increases the rates for the rest of the water used in a month.
Questioned by a local resident about the discrepancy, the mayor said the council in their May meeting packets had had the information about the lifeline rates and understood that was what was being approved.
The “lifeline” alternative had been discussed during the May 3 work session but was not in the motion approved on May 4.
Asked point blank by retired schoolteacher Kay Pierce if everyone on the council understood when they cast their earlier votes that they were voting to implement the “lifeline” alternative, responses from councilmen were not forthcoming. Only Dixon indicated he did not.
However, Councilman Sonny Morris later admitted to the
Barrow Journal that he too thought the rates were simply going up by the flat rates discussed the night of the vote.
The May 4 meeting minutes approved by the council this week do not include the precise wording of the rate-hike motion by Councilman Ridley Parrish. And Winder’s council meetings are not recorded. However, a
Gwinnett Daily Post reporter who covered the May 4 vote and wrote that it had been for the flat rate increases, said in an interview Tuesday that her notes of that meeting do not mention a “lifeline” rate structure. Nevertheless, the city’s finance director pointed out that residential customers who use up to 3,000 gallons will not see their water bills rise at all. She said the higher rates for water over that amount — 64 percent for city customers and 56 percent for other residential customers — are intended to encourage water conservation.
