‘We’re doing the best we can.’ How coronavirus budget cuts impact life in Macon, GA

COVID-19 has severely cut tax revenues for state and local governments, prompting leaders to prepare cuts to services and programs.

The state of Georgia cut $2.2 billion from its budget, including $950 million in basic k-12 school funding, to meet the expected decline in revenue, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Macon-Bibb County reduced its expenses by more than $4.5 million with the expectation to use $5.5 million from the fund balance in the 2021 fiscal year, which starts Wednesday, according to the 2021 budget report.

“I have to be honest to tell you that we do not yet know what our revenues are going to be for the fiscal year 2021. We have within the past few weeks adopted a budget, and we picked a revenue number out of the hat,” said Macon-Bibb County Mayor Robert Reichert.

The mayor’s proposed budget estimated a 10% loss in revenue with the county taking $10 million from the fund balance, which was projected to be at around $27 million at the end of the 2020 fiscal year, but the Board of Commissioners amended the budget to have an estimated 5% loss in revenue based on more recent sales tax revenues.

The Board of Commissioners committed to review the budget in January to determine if the budget needed to be amended further, Reichert said.

“More so than other years, 2021 is going to be a budget year where the budget is constantly being reviewed and amended, not so much on the expenditure side, but on the revenue side,” he said.

The county saw a large reduction in sales tax revenue in March when businesses were only closed for two weeks out of the month, Reichert said.

“We were pleasantly surprised when the reduction wasn’t as much as we had feared, so that gave us some reason to cross our fingers and hope, and so, the commission made some of their decisions, especially the budget committee, made some of their decisions based on more favorable results than I had initially predicted,” he said.

One reason the county hasn’t seen a massive dip in sales tax is because of a United States Supreme Court ruling in 2018 and a subsequent law that was passed in the Georgia legislature in January 2020.

In South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that internet retailers can be required to collect sales taxes even in states where they have no physical presence, according to the New York Times.

The Georgia legislature passed a bill that forces “‘marketplace facilitators’ whose websites or apps are used to sell goods or services provided by someone else to collect and remit sales taxes,” according to the AJC. The law went into effect April 1.

The impact of budget cuts on daily life

Because county projects take so long to develop, Reichert said the coronavirus outbreak’s main impact on those projects has been to slow them down due to social distancing guidelines for construction workers.

Projects, such as a restaurant opening, might have been postponed indefinitely due to the economic blowback of the coronavirus, but the county has no way of knowing if that has happened, Reichert said.

“I suppose a fair and short answer to your question is different projects have been impacted and affected in different ways: major ways, minor ways or hardly any impact at all,” he said.

Reichert said he doesn’t believe the reductions in the budget will impact people for the most part because the millage rate isn’t increasing.

The first change people in Macon-Bibb County probably noticed was the recreation centers closed, the swimming pools never opened and a lot of camps and activities were canceled due to the coronavirus, he said. The recreation centers are scheduled to open July 7.

The county uses prison labor to cut the grass of right of ways and cemeteries, but prisons have decided not to let inmates work in order to protect them and other inmates from contracting COVID-19, Reichert said.

Although the county can hire contractors to do the work, it cost twice as much to hire them than the inmates, he said.

“We just have to ask for people’s patience and understand we’re doing the best we can with what we got, and until the prison crews open back up and get back out, we can hire them for a reduced amount,” Reichert said.

The county is also looking at innovative ways to do work, such as hiring sheep to clear out an area for a park.

Reichert said it might take longer for someone to come pick up people’s trash or it might take an officer longer to arrive at a non-emergency situation, but he is asking people to be understanding.

The county’s pocket

The main changes to reduce expenses in the budget were made to salaries and travel expenses.

In the initial budget proposed by the mayor, employees in the recreation department were going to furlough four days a week for June-August, but the commission amended the budget to exclude the furlough.

Instead, all non-sworn employees of Macon-Bibb County will furlough one half day per week starting in January. Virgil Watkins, chair of the operations and finance committee and commissioner of district 8, said in the June 2 committee meeting that the plan is to reevaluate the revenues in January to determine if the furloughs are necessary and if the pay scale can be implemented.

One of the largest reductions in the budget was in the Sheriff’s Department under the Patrol Division, which decreased nearly $900,000. The mayor said the decrease was caused by removing some funded vacancies from the Sheriff’s budget.

More changes to the budget were made compared to the 2020 fiscal year.

• The Board of Commissioners’ travel and education budgets increased to allow new elected officials to attend state mandated training.

• The Sports Hall of Fame received $50,000. The commission debated why Navicent Health should receive $50,000 in indigent care in the June 9 meeting which resulted in the budget not passing. After the amendment to the Sports Hall of Fame, the budget passed.

• Repair work for the towers that help public safety officials talk on radios will cost $191,000, said Julie Moore, the assistant to the county manager for budget and strategic planning.

• NewTown Macon is budgeted $81,000. The county shifted personnel from Main Street Macon to NewTown because they manage the board of that program. Additionally, NewTown will also receive funding for the Main Street Christmas Light Extravaganza, which used to go to the Macon Arts Alliance, Moore said.

• Business Development Services received an increase of $600,000 in contractual services to pay SAFEBuilt Georgia LLC, the company who will manage building inspections and permits for the county, Moore said.

“We are trying to be fiscally conservative. The COVID-19 has created a great unknown about what our revenues are going to be, but we will be down here monitoring revenues as they are received and comparing them to last year’s and the previous year’s to see how they’re tracking,” Reichert said. “Be patient with us and understand that we’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got to work with.”