The Athens-Clarke County Commission convened a special called session for the first taxpayer bill of rights hearing on the FY27 budget, followed by its regular agenda setting meeting. The meeting included public comment on the budget, discussion of consent agenda items, and review of several planning and zoning items, capital projects, and policy reports.
Welcome to City Hall. It's Wednesday, May twentieth, twenty twenty-six, and we are here for both a special called session that will include our taxpayer bill of rights hearing number one, and our regularly scheduled agenda setting session, which of course, due to the election of last night, was moved to two night. Uh, through the evening as we sit here in these comfortable seats with the air conditioning cranking. Um there are a lot of folks out there who are maintaining those facilities and elements of infrastructure uh who are working on our vehicles and who are paving our roads and mowing our fields and repairing things all over Athens Clark County. So kudos to them all. What's on that? Uh it does say um Public Works Week 2026, and then uh there are all these little icons representing some of that stuff I just described. And uh I'll bet they've got an extra if you'd like one, Commissioner Hambe. I know you're a hat fan. Uh and so I grandpa Gertz was a hat collector. I feel like I've turned into him here in this era of my life. Um, Madam Clerk, we're gonna go ahead and begin with a roll call. Hey, here. Fisher, Johnson here, Paul Pepper, here's here, Thornton, here, handy. Here we have a board. All right, thank you, Madam Clerk. All right, so the purpose of our gathering tonight is to conduct a public hearing on the proposed FY27 budget, which will include our taxpayer bill of rights hearing number one. Um public input on the taxpayer bill of rights hearing will mimic that of our later public input. Um, public input on each segment tonight, which will be our taxpayer bill of rights hearing, uh, and then later our consent agenda, our old and new business, and several planning and zoning items will include a three-minute opportunity per meeting segment per individual. Um, there's a light in front of the clerk that again, one of our great employees built about 35 years ago, and it will turn green when you provide your name and place of residence. It will turn yellow when you have 30 seconds of your three-minute time remaining. It will turn red when your three minutes is concluded. And I'll thank you for your time with us tonight as we need to move on to the next speaker. So, um, to the first order business. Um, as is the case, we always have an upcoming budget to prepare that will be approved this year on June 9th, and we have three state required opportunities for members of the public to speak to the budget. And so I'd like to call on any members of the public to line up at the podium now if you'd like to speak to our fiscal year 27 budget, which will take effect on July 1st. Some years we have a line out the door, some years not so much. Good to see you, and again, just provide your name and place of residence for us. Hello, uh, Mr. Mayor, Commissioners. Uh, my name is Patrick Sheridan, and I live at 134 Ashley Circle in Athens. Um I just had a couple of things after looking at the budget that I wanted to talk about. Um, the first one was the library budget. Um, I noted that the recommended budget approved the library request in full, um, but I wanted to make you all aware that um if you didn't know the library recently announced that they would be cutting a platform called Hoopla, which provides audiobooks and um streaming services for patrons. Um and they said this was due to cost, and I just wanted you all to consider would it be possible to maybe increase some funding to the library to keep this platform going. You know, I know, you know, relying on it for books and streaming is very important to me as a patron of the library. Um, so I would encourage you all to consider looking into that. I believe they said they would have to eliminate it at the end of June due to funding again, as I said. Um, the second one is related to the budget, I guess. But I saw the article about um today about the mayor's recent proposal on sales taxes. Um, and I just wanted to encourage you all, you know, as someone, you know, on a limited budget, I'm a grad student. You know, the rising inflation of gasoline grocery places has really hurt me. Um, and adding another sales tax um for someone like me, it's kind of you know, not something that I'm wouldn't be the most pleased lift. Um, I understand that there's a lot of concern with property taxes as well, but um I think you all should also consider, you know, people who aren't making as much and are being hurt more by sales taxes you know how is that gonna affect them you know compared to someone who has a house maybe making a substantial income as well so I just had those two things thank you thank you Mr. Sheridan there anyone else who would like to speak to our FY27 budget all right uh for members of the public we'll have a meeting uh tomorrow evening where we hear from our independent agencies like the library uh that would be Thursday the 21st um and then we'll have uh series of meetings uh in days of follow I'm about to give you those I apologize I've got them right here on my phone um we'll have a meeting June 2nd at 6 p.m. June 4th at 6 p.m and June 9th at 6 p.m. Two of the three of those are the formal taxpayer bill of rights hearing nights um but public input will be taken at all of those um so I look forward to that discussion uh any commission input on the budget tonight just uh any thoughts you want to provide uh knowing of course we've got the kind of coming opportunities that I just described and I I do want the um commission to um I guess know that I would be asking for us to look for a um for funds for it in investigator for the public defender's office um that'll probably be my only ask I know we're not a fine money isn't dollars um but that that's it for me thanks Commissioner Taylor uh Commissioner Fisher no I thought it was in the budget no not we we don't have a uh district attorney oh that's right that's right thank you my commissioner I ask also about um yeah I really think they should be on the equal balance with the uh the prosecutor the only other thing that I wanted to think about is the medical um expenses for the sheriff's office that's we learned a lot about how we end up paying for services when someone is ill and has to be hospitalized that impacts their um budget so those were the two things that I wanted to mention thank you commissioner and of course staff is always diligent in tracking down any questions so if you do have anything else please communicate via email and uh they'll they'll go ahead and do any research for you that you need Commissioner Myers yeah just a quick a quick comment uh for our one speaker tonight I I will ask the librarian about um hoopla I'm a uh big supporter and user of the Libby and there's a lot of a lot of uh uses and services that the library gives to a lot of different people um and I hate hearing that there's something like that being cut um I also wanted to mention something about the floss tax that was referred to be here because you know I open up the flagpole and I see something on in there and I want to make it really clear to the person who spoke tonight and anyone else who's talking about it that this is a discussion point that would have to be voted on by the public. So and this is not something that we can just do here behind the rail. So I want to make that clear and that we're not talking about doing that this year if it even gets on there. I think we have to approve it before it gets on there right so is that correct mayor that we would that would be in the bills I believe that people receive in the fall of 28 that it would formally become implemented.