DeKalb County Budget draws concerns over pension, county services

Eliminating the government-funded pension for county employees, identifying wasteful spending in non-essential positions, and even forming unincorporated DeKalb County into its own incorporated community, were options residents implored county commissioners to consider Tuesday night as ways to plug the hole in what some felt is a bloated county budget.

More than 50 residents turned out to Montgomery Elementary School for Commissioner Elaine Boyer's first of two budget hearings in District 1. Boyer and other commissioners are hosting town hall meetings in their districts so tax payers can sound off on the 2011 budget before it is voted on by the Board of Commissioners and sent to CEO Burrell Ellis for his signature by March 1.

Ellis’ proposed $563 million budget would cut more than 750 county jobs to make up for $50 million in lost real estate and sales taxes.

If adopted, DeKalb residents would see a property tax rate millage increase 0f 2.32 mils. For an average DeKalb County home, appraised at $190,000, property taxes would increase by $264 annually.

While some residents were vehemently opposed to a tax increase, district resident Daniel Axelrad said, "there would be a lot less resistance in seeing taxes go up if we were getting comparable services."Axelrad used an example of a recent citing of several sanitation workers in one truck picking up trash at a local park.

"Something radical is going to have to happen to address the problem," he said.

County residents tossed around several ideas to Commissioners Boyer (D-1) and co-host Kathie Gannon (D-6), including cutting the hours of the libraries and recreation centers instead of closing the centers completely, postponing construction on new library facilities, reorganizing the sanitation department, and eliminating the county pension and replacing it with a 401K-type retirement savings plan.

According to the DeKalb County Budget Analysis distributed Tuesday night, the pension and health benefits costs taxpayers more than $70 million in 2010. Both county commissioners and residents agreed that a 401K-type plan would be less expensive.

"Who says a pension is an entitlement to all employees?," said Elizabeth Wong Mark, a Brookhaven resident. "I have never had a pension, so a pension is not a sacred cow. Going into a 401K with a match of 6 percent is still very generous," she said.

Lynwood Park resident Jonathan Byrd also pointed to the pension as a budget liability. He suggested eliminating the pension for all new hires and setting up a 401K option for employees and cap out the existing pension plan.

"After we make up this pension liability issue by raising real estate taxes, the pension will be over funded at that point because the [stock] market would have doubled over a two-year period," Byrd said.

Commissioners Gannon and Byrd both said that the pension is state mandated, and would therefore need to be addressed by the State Legislature.

Still, Byrd said, "[The pension] is not appropriate and we need to have some sort of fail-safe in place to be able to react to such massive drops and rebounds as we've seen in the stock market."

Other suggestions were:

• Raise fines associated with moving violations by 50 percent

• Privatize benefit packages for county employees.

• Review the feasibility of the county contracting out current full-time positions.

Following the meeting, the commissioners were thanked by the residents and were applauded for staying for two hours to address the concerns of the citizens. 

Boyer will host one more meeting Thursday, Feb. 17 at Tucker Library. The commissioners are expected to vote on the budget on Feb. 22.