Twiggs County once again in turmoil

“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”

The Twiggs County Board of Commissioners is in a mess. A big mess. Such a mess that Commission Chairman Ken Fowler called a meeting to discuss how deep a mess on Monday — Labor Day. In that meeting — a meeting where three commissioners, Donald Watson, Tommie Lee Bryant and William Bond — decided not to attend, Fowler declared, “We’re in a bad way.” How bad? “Apparently we spent 3 million more dollars than we took in,” Fowler said. Just how do you do that? You have to know a little bit about Twiggs County.

The meeting, at least for the purposes of taking action, was a waste of time because with only Fowler and Commissioner Donald Floyd in attendance, it lacked a quorum. That’s probably just what the absent members, two of whom were sighted nearby, wanted. Such news would be devastating for any area, but for a tiny, cash-poor county such as Twiggs the news Fowler brought was particularly grim.

A Georgia Regional Commission audit of Twiggs spending shows nearly $7.2 million spent in Fiscal Year 2015. That’s a real problem when the county only brings in about $4 million annually. Spending through August has already reached $4.5 million, and the county will end this month more than $200,000 in the red, and meeting payroll was going to be a problem. However, during Tuesday’s meeting instead of being in the red, the commissioners discovered they were about $150,000 to the good. How did they do that?

County Attorney R. Chix Miller explained that “cash flow is a dynamic thing,” and told The Telegraph, “All they did was add $309,000 on hand right now to $200,000 available in their line of credit, and another $60,000 that’s coming, and subtracted the payroll for the second part of September and subtracted average expenses.” Key sentence: “$200,000 available in their line of credit.”

The first order of business when finding oneself in a hole is to stop digging, but remember, this is Twiggs County. This is the same county that voted in a 2007 special county election to reopen Dry Branch Elementary, but voted down, in the same election, the special purpose local option sales tax to finance the reopening. It’s the same county that kicked former commission Chairman Ray Bennett to the curb in favor of Fowler after Fowler was removed as Probate Court judge in 2010 by the Georgia Supreme Court. According to a Telegraph interview at the time, Fowler promised to “stop waste, control spending, maintain or reduce property taxes, and create a transparent government.” How’s that working out?

Twiggs County Commission meetings can be boisterous, and Tuesday’s was no different. At one point Commissioner William Bond walked out. Can the commissioners dig out of the hole they’re in? Not if they continue their present course of action. Twiggs County Board of Assessors Chairman Walt Ashby says he’s getting pushback from the commission in his attempts to audit properties in the county.

Ashby said he has been trying for months to update records to ensure no one is improperly receiving property tax exemptions. “We’re finding very few records to exist to support the exemptions that are being claimed,” Ashby said. And, there are commissioners who are fine with him seeking to catch others using unwarranted exemptions, but when it comes to someone on the commission, he’s supposed to “look away.”

Ashby is probably aware of the axiom that applies to all tax assessors: If a tax assessor does a bad job, he gets fired — and if he does a good job, he’s fired.

The county is looking for help from the Georgia Regional Commission and their state representatives, but neither Rep. Bubber Epps nor Rep. David Lucas can pull a $3 million rabbit out of their hats, nor would they want to, considering the state of the records in Twiggs County.

There could be a way out of the mess through the Association County Commissioners Georgia or a tax anticipation note. However, if they decide to go that route, we would advise the commissioners not to invite any of the decision makers to their next meeting. It would be assured that after witnessing such a circus they would not want any role in getting Twiggs out of the mess it has created.

This story was originally published September 7, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Twiggs County once again in turmoil."