Clayton County BOC Work Session: MARTA, ME Office, Benefits, Incentives – February 12, 2026
Clayton County Board of Commissioners Work Session – February 12, 2026
The Clayton County Board of Commissioners held a work session on February 12, 2026, to receive staff and consultant presentations on MARTA’s quarterly update, the Medical Examiner’s Office long-term plan, CCWA grants, library hours, curbside waste collection, retiree health benefits, local incentive policy, and economic development. The agenda packet lists the meeting as September 10, 2024, at 5:30 PM; the meeting date provided for this summary is February 12, 2026. No formal votes were taken at the work session.
Discussion Items
- MARTA Q3 Quarterly Briefing – Collie Greenwood, MARTA GM/CEO: MARTA reported that mobility and streetcar ridership have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels, while bus and rail ridership are recovering gradually. The five-year bus shelter amenity program is complete: 70% of bus riders in Clayton County waiting for a bus are now served by an amenity, including 150 of the 1,000 shelters in Clayton County. Proposed Route 191 changes would extend service to the airport south cargo area on Mondays through Saturdays and consolidate low-frequency alternating service near Riverdale and Jonesboro; Route 191 frequency would move from 40 to 45 minutes. Airport Station rehabilitation included a six-week construction period from April 8 to May 19, platform and concourse work, escalator rehabilitation, and a new elevator. The Justice Center Transit Hub is expected to reach 100% design by the end of September, with construction beginning in August 2025. The MARTA operations and maintenance facility received five demolition bids, with project completion anticipated for August 2029. MARTA submitted the South Lake BRT Small Starts application on August 23 and is reviewing potential new SR 54 BRT alignments. Greenwood said talks with the City of Morrow are ongoing, the BRT project is not expected to be derailed, and a plan B exists if the endpoint changes. He confirmed Airport Station rehab is funded by MARTA’s core penny, not Clayton County’s penny. MARTA also noted it received the national Transit Agency of the Year award.
- Medical Examiner’s Office Long-Term Plan – Director Brian Byars: Byars presented caseload growth: 793 cases in 2021, 968 in 2022, 991 in 2023, and 713 cases already handled as of the presentation date. Current staffing includes one medical examiner, a director, one chief investigator, two senior death investigators, eight death investigators, one forensic anthropologist/senior death investigator, legal counsel, and two administrative positions. He described a national forensic pathologist shortage: about 2,200 are needed, only 1,500 are practicing, and roughly 50 to 60 retire each year while only about 30 enter the field. Estimated salaries are about $290,000 for newer pathologists and $375,000 for experienced pathologists. GBI toxicology turnaround can take four to six months, the GBI can decline autopsy requests, and the rough decline rate was estimated at about 20%. Clayton County currently pays about $2,500 per autopsy contracted through DeKalb County; private autopsies can cost $6,000 to $8,000. A future facility on Garden Walk Boulevard is an ARPA-funded design-build renovation with roughly 16,000 to 17,000 square feet; the $5 million is primarily for renovation rather than equipment. Byars asked the board to consider county-employed versus contracted staffing. Commissioners supported further cost-benefit and funding analysis, and noted potential revenue from contracting autopsy or toxicology services to other counties and a possible school-system pathology pathway.
- Deferred Items: Agenda items 3 and 4 — Operational Issues of Open Record Requests for CCPD and the SPLOST Update — were not presented. Staff said they would be presented at a later time.
- Clayton County Water Authority Grants Update – Bernard Franks, CCWA CEO: Franks described a $14 million GIFA grant for a parallel pre-treatment plant next to the existing Hicks plant, noting it is only about 3% of the total project. Final design and construction is approximately $480 million; CCWA plans to pursue $449.5 million in WIFIA and bond financing, about 94% of the total, and already has a $16 million GIFA loan and a $25 million GIFA loan for stormwater infrastructure. The plant’s current capacity is about 36 million gallons per day (MGD), with a goal of nearly 46 MGD; existing plants are at roughly 65% to 70% capacity. The project addresses PFOS/PFOA pre-treatment and supports economic development. Work could start in three to six months and take about four years. Franks said CCWA will return to the BOC for bond approval.
- Modification of Library Operating Hours – Scott Parham, Library Services Director: Parham proposed uniform hours at all library locations: Monday 10 AM to 7 PM, Tuesday noon to 8 PM, Wednesday and Thursday 10 AM to 7 PM, Friday 10 AM to 6 PM, and Saturday 10 AM to 4 PM. Headquarters currently operates 65 hours per week and branches 53 hours. Foot-traffic data from October 2022 to March 2024 showed low evening use; Tuesday stays open later because circulation is highest that day. Benefits cited included tighter staff coverage, better training and planning, utility savings, and more time for operational tasks. Surveyed patrons generally said they could still access library services. One commissioner expressed disappointment about losing late evening access at Northwest Library, and Commissioner Davis asked about Friday use. The Library Board of Trustees has approved the proposal; Parham said a public awareness campaign would occur and implementation was targeted for January 2025, subject to a future BOC vote.
- Update on Residential Curbside Waste Collection – COO Detrick Stanford: Stanford reported that Central Services obtained price holds from two vendors for the base residential curbside service at $19 per month through February 14, 2025. Enhanced services and code-enforcement considerations remain open. A follow-up with the newly seated board is planned for early January, and the board could request a multi-year price lock from the vendors.
- 2025 Benefits Renewal – Retirees Self-Funded Medical – Pamela Ambles, HR Director, and Marsh McLennan Agency: The agenda labels this item as “Retirees Self Funded Medical,” while the presentation described a fully insured Medicare Advantage plan. Aetna’s renewal came in at a 32% increase; after going to market, HR and MMA recommended moving retirees to Anthem at approximately 2.4% above the current premium, with no coverage changes and an estimated savings of about $296,155 compared with the Aetna renewal. A pharmacy change was described as saving about $145,215 over one option. There are 461 retirees on the plan: 387 live in Georgia and 74 live out of state. About 50 to 60 retirees attended town hall meetings; many were neutral and expressed trust in the county, while raising concerns about keeping doctors, pharmacy continuity, and maintaining coverage. Anthem agreed to a $50 rate cap for 2026, described as about a 21% maximum increase, after initially proposing a $75 cap. The Inflation Reduction Act lowers Medicare pharmacy out-of-pocket maximums from $8,000 to $2,000, shifting cost pressure to carriers. MMA also reviewed the Kaiser active-employee commercial plan’s loss ratios, including 103%, 89%, and 108% in recent years, and stated Kaiser declined a multi-year rate guarantee. Commissioner Davis observed that premiums had risen roughly 32% over four years even as paid loss ratios averaged about 96% and subscribers declined about 15%.
- Local Incentive Policy Presentation – Kathy Gelston, Vision First Advisors: Gelston presented findings from a 120-day study and stakeholder interviews. Key findings included Clayton County’s airport location, water infrastructure, younger workforce, annual population growth over 1%, and lower cost of living as assets. About 8,000 workers commute out of Clayton County for manufacturing jobs and about 14,676 for business/management jobs, suggesting available workforce. She recommended process improvements in zoning and permitting, non-industrial tools such as tax allocation districts and community improvement districts, small-business assistance, and a tiered industrial incentive policy: Tier 1 projects under $5 million investment or fewer than 15 jobs would receive no property tax abatement but would get staff support; Tier 2 projects over $5 million with 15 jobs paying at least 125% of the county average wage, or $30 million with 50 jobs at 100%, or 100 jobs at 125%, would receive a 50% abatement for five years; Tier 3 projects over $100 million with 100 jobs at 125%, or 300 jobs at 125%, would receive a declining abatement beginning at 75%; major economic impact projects would be negotiated separately. Gelston stated that large projects would likely be lost without a competitive property tax abatement policy and that timing and perception risk matter in site selection. The final 34-page document was included in the board packet.
- Office of Economic Development Update – Erica Rocker-Wills: Rocker-Wills reported that Georgia GDP increased by $120 billion, Metro Atlanta contributed $78 billion, and Clayton County contributed $2.68 billion, ranking sixth among metro counties. Other statistics included 16,600 businesses, an unemployment rate of 4.8%, an uninsured rate under age 65 of 18.4%, about 138,000 jobs, and the highest census tract average income at $116,000 in the Lake Spivey area. Fresh Express remained the top employer with 1,500 employees. The county is a Tier 1 job tax credit county with a $4,000 per-job credit. Recent activity included a $100,000 CDBG award for gateway beautification, ARPA-funded programs totaling $300,000 to small businesses, 54 nonprofits, and 40 commercial beautification grants, and workforce events with Fort Valley State University’s agri-tech truck. Current projects include Project Splash at $200 million, Project Swing at $1.3 billion, Project Think at $1.2 billion, Project Chill, and Project Seaweed, a Korean-based manufacturer. Staff confirmed all commercial beautification grants were ARPA-funded and about $30,000 remained to be allocated.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken; the meeting was a work session.
- Agenda items 3 and 4 were deferred to a later meeting.
- The Medical Examiner’s Office options will be further analyzed for cost benefit, staffing model, and funding.
- Library hours will require a future BOC vote before implementation; the Library Board of Trustees already supports the change.
- Curbside waste decisions are expected after the newly seated board meets; the $19 per month price hold runs through February 14, 2025.
- The retiree benefits recommendation is to move from Aetna to Anthem; the board still needs to act before open enrollment.
- The local incentive policy and economic development reports were informational, with no formal adoption at the work session.
Meeting Transcript
All right, here and now we can go into our presentations. First one is our Martha Q3 quarterly update. Mr. Greenwood, how are you, sir? Good, thank you, sir. How are you? Going well, thank you. All right, well, good evening, everyone. Um, Chairman Turner, members of the board of commissioners, glad to be joined uh by uh remotely by our Marta board members, Chair Kathleen Powers and Valencia Williamson. I'm also um happy to meet uh Miss Alina Reeves, our new uh board member or commissioner, and happy to have your expertise as well. She's uh Commissioner Alana. Am I messing it up too? Or did he say that? Oh, I'm the one saying it in properly. I can call anything. Okay, all right. I apologize, Mr. Quite Alright. Thank you, right. All right. So, you know, we've got uh a number of uh accomplishments that we'd love to report on this evening, uh, from completing our bus shelter amenity program on time as promised to submitting our CIG grant application for South Lake, hosting a lot of community engagement this past quarter, and uh even winning um the the country's uh transit agency of the year award. We've had a very productive third quarter, and I'd like to just jump. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Thank you. Uh we'll share these updates along with some capital expansion progress and other interesting news. So the first thing operationally is to just you know the continuous um watch on our ridership year over year improvement. We can see that um our mobility and our streetcar modes have almost made it back to pre-pandemic levels, and we can see that bus and rail continue to make I won't say struggle, but they are they are gradually making their way back to pre-pandemic levels. Um we continue to do the things that we need to do to clear the way and clear the path, and we're encouraged by some solid indicators like increased off-peak ridership, increased weekend ridership, and increased special events ridership. So the elasticity is there, the customers know we're there, it's just a matter of getting their habits back, and we're we're very positive that that this will happen. I mentioned the five-year bus amenity program, so there it is. We we can safely now say that um 70% of people in Clayton County that are waiting for a bus are waiting where they are being served by an amenity. And so a hundred and fifty of this um 1,000 amenity program uh happened right here in Clayton County. And we're not resting on our laurels. We're now talking about phase two. We're recognizing that we want to get some canopies in there, some micro shelters, some LED lighting, and continue that conversation. So I want to step back and thank you and the community for constantly engaging with us and giving giving us ideas about where these amenities needed to be placed. It's not just in the high uh ridership locations. There are some some specific locations that you all pointed out to us, and we look forward to that kind of um uh collaboration in phase two. And of course, one more time. Here's a picture of what that means. These are not just words, but um there it is. A picture is worth a thousand words. Everything's new, everything's different, everything says that we care about the customer. Um, down to you know, concrete pad underneath, so you're not standing in water. There's a bench there so you can have a seat. There's shade over top, there's information inside the shelter. There's even information um embedded inside of that new modern bus stop there. So it's got the QR code that you can tell uh using a cell phone when your next vehicle is coming, and it also lists the routes that are serving that spot. So uh a lot of improvement in this program.
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