Turns out Macon-Bibb consolidation wasn't such a great deal afterall

When Bibb County voters approved the consolidation of the governments of Macon, Bibb County and Payne City in 2012, they did so based on the promise of a more efficient, less expensive government. Opponents were concerned that the benefits of melding the three governments into one were being oversold, and that the promises of immediate tax cuts for Macon city residents and a mandatory 20 percent reduction in the cost of government were dangerously unrealistic.

Turns out, those warnings of irrational exuberance were well-founded.

The Macon-Bibb government has had to contend with serious budget shortfalls every year since consolidation went into effect in 2014 and is struggling to balance the books again this year. The options, as always, are unpleasant – raise taxes, punish city workers and retirees with pay and benefit cuts, or dip into their reserves. (That reserve well has just about run dry, sinking from $33 million in 2014 to about $4 million today.)

This clearly wasn’t what voters were expecting when they approved the bold change to the local governing structure in 2012, and many are wondering what went wrong. It would seem that what went wrong was exactly what consolidation opponents feared would happen – the plan was too aggressive and based on overly optimistic assumptions about immediate, offsetting cuts in both spending and taxation.

Compounding that problem is the fact that retirement and healthcare costs for present and former city workers continue to trend upward, something not expected to change anytime soon.

Frustration about the ongoing budget problem has had a divisive effect within the county government, as these things often do. A few weeks ago county council representatives Joe Allen and Elaine Lucas very publicly floated the idea of calling for an expensive, independent audit of the local budget to help determine where all the county’s money is going.

Their call for an outside audit of the governing body on which they serve struck me as a bit odd. If county commissioners are so far removed from their own budgeting process that they need to call for an outside audit, what does that say about their own engagement (or lack thereof) in that process?

They can point the finger at Mayor Robert Reichert -- who has probably been the greatest cheerleader for consolidation from the start and deserves a hefty share of any blame for shortcomings of the endeavor -- all they like, but one would assume that county commissioners are active participants in the budgeting process as well.

Their suggestion of an outside audit is a bit like a husband or wife calling for an audit of their own family’s finances. It’s probably a sign that the marriage is not working very well, and likely wouldn’t address the underlying problem effectively.

If voters are truly frustrated with how their local government is managing corporate finances, they might want to keep those frustrations in mind the next time local elections are held. Robert Reichert has been mayor (first of Macon, then of the consolidated government) since 2007. Many of the same faces have populated the city council/county commission for a long period of time as well.

Maybe some concerned citizens who have a background in management and finance should consider providing voters with some fresh options at the ballot box during the next election cycle. As the old saying goes: “Politicians and diapers need changing often, and for the same reason.”

This story was originally published June 15, 2018 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Turns out Macon-Bibb consolidation wasn't such a great deal afterall."