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3 days ago
SPLOST Committee Gets Set to Whittle Down Long List of Projects
Having heard hours of presentations by county staffers and community groups about some 60 projects being proposed for funding, the 22-member SPLOST citizens' advisory committee began discussing which ones to recommend. Committee members went round-robin last week to discuss the projects for the first time (although they had asked questions during the earlier presentations), and one concern appeared to be foremost: What will voters pass? "I think that's on everybody's mind," said advisory committee chair Jim Gaudin.
The list of proposed projects totals $278 million; with input from county commissioners, the advisory committee members must trim it to the $84 million that will actually be available once costs of a new jail have been subtracted. Then ACC commissioners will approve a final list in July, and voters will say yea or nay on extending the one-cent tax on Nov. 2. A new jail is a given, commissioners have said, and funding it with sales-tax money could save tens of millions in interest costs over funding it with property taxes. Similarly, as some committee members pointed out, including various infrastructure and equipment costs could also save on property taxes, even forcing out-of-town shoppers to help foot the bill for ACC improvements. (Projects proposed include street maintenance, upgrading water lines and replacing emergency equipment for the fire department.)
But committee members also voiced concerns from that the county government has grown too dependent on SPLOST money, and that it shouldn't be used for such routine costs. "We're becoming addicted to it," said Jerry NeSmith, and others agreed. "I always looked at SPLOST for getting us things we wouldn't get otherwise," added John Devine. Other proposed projects include park and greenway expansions, sidewalks and speed humps, public art projects, a Boys and Girls Club building, tree planting, replacing a fire station, an Eastside branch library, new police radios and new software to allow police and courts to better communicate (the full "SPLOST 2011" list and project details are available through www.athensclarkecounty.com).
"This community has done a really poor job of funding infrastructure for walking and bicycling," Devine said. Better facilities "will create a sea change of attitudes towards walking and bicycling," he added. Former Mayor Gwen O'Looney defended past funding of greenway projects with the one-cent sales tax as "a money producer" that draws people to the county, and said that even developers have come around to liking it (10 miles of new trails are being proposed, costing $20 million). She also defended a proposed expansion of the Classic Center. "We have got to care about economic development," O'Looney said, and the convention center has always taken "the largest chunk" of SPLOST money. And it will again, aside from the jail project, if the advisory committee decides to include the $54 million expansion of the center's exhibit hall. But that money should come back to Athens in the larger conventions it can attract, consultants have said.
"My concern is about the Classic Center—it's an awful big chunk of the money," said Gaudin. Asking voters to approve the jail, Classic Center and just "a few others" could be a hard sell, worried NeSmith and others. The committee members are not only supposed to pick the list, they're supposed to help "sell" it to the voters. (If voters disapprove, no subsequent SPLOST referendum could be offered for at least one year.) "I think all these projects can be scaled back," suggested Grady Eberhart. "All of them are probably asking for more money than they need." He favored a proposed "Bioscience Industrial Park" to attract industry: "We need to look at some proposal that's going to bring some jobs… If you can put people to work, you've got a successful community."
3 days ago
Extension Service Budget Cuts Would Have Broad Impact
With 169 Cooperative Extension jobs possibly on the chopping block, local agent Amanda Tedrow waits nervously.
Her position at the Athens-Clarke County Extension office sits precariously in the hands of state legislators. And whether or not she'll soon have to look for work depends upon their uncertain ability to balance the budget. Until then she's in the dark.
“I don't know,” says Tedrow, whose husband would lose his job at the State Botanical Garden if proposed cuts go through. She guesses she has “a 50 percent chance” of keeping her job.
Under the current proposal, half of the state's extension offices would shut their doors, which those affected consider a draconian reaction to a recent call from the statehouse to cut an extra $300 million from the higher education budget.
Swearing he would not “dismantle a world-class university system,” Governor Sonny Perdue lambasted legislators for requesting additional cuts on top of the $265 million reduction already being shouldered by the Board of Regents for the 2011 fiscal year. But even if his statements weren't mere political grandstanding on a highly emotional issue, the forecast for the current state of higher education is grim.
Simply, Georgia's budget numbers show few sign of rebounding. As of the end of February, net revenue collections by the state are down 12.7 percent for the year-to-date fiscal year compared to 2009. February alone showed a drop of almost 10 percent from the previous year.
Just about the only revenue streams that have improved came from taxes on alcohol. Georgians bought a million more gallons of booze over last February—which would be good news if it wasn't also proof they're feeling the hard times.
Outside of proposing a statewide bender to save the budget, lawmakers and critics are reaching for any kind of cost-saving solution. In response to one option, Board of Regents Chancellor Errol Davis informed House and Senate higher education subcommittees that reducing university administrator salaries would not be considered. According to Davis, such action would be a grave blow to Georgia's intellectual capital, whom he suggested would leave for out-of-state institutions offering more competitive wages.
Whether or not UGA President Michael Adams' $600,000-plus salary is ripe for some kind of cannibalizing is a debate for a different day. Instead, the question now is: Why should the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences be treated differently than any other department at UGA?
If the proposed cuts happen, Cooperative Extension—part of the CAES—would see a total reduction of 51.45 percent in its state budget since 2008. According to a press release, the extension service (including the state's 4H programs) would be “absorbing 20 percent of UGA's budget cuts” when it comprises only 7.6 percent of UGA's state budget.
Somehow, eliminating the 4H program and sacking half of Cooperative Extension's personnel doesn't register as a loss of intellectual capital. Yet the extension agents alone are the primary sources of sound, research-based information for agriculture in the state of Georgia. They provide technical expertise for home gardeners, backyard farmers and large commodity operators—not to mention educational programs for local students.
What kind of effect would the closure of 79 extension offices in the state have on agriculture and agribusiness, Georgia's largest industry? Just as importantly, what kind of effect would removing these jobs have on the state's rural counties, already struggling in this blistering economic climate?
By most accounts, 4H and the extension service are the most intensive and practical outreach that UGA provides. No other university employee—no provost or assistant dean—has the same personal and even financial impact on the lives of everyday Georgians, residents of Athens being no exception.
“There's hardly anything in this community that you're involved in, that you've attended… that hasn't been somehow supported by that extension service,” says Pam Snyder, master gardener and regular volunteer at the Athens-Clarke County office. If the CAES is forced to scale back its programs severely, the ramifications are unimaginable. Of course, no one knows anything yet.
Hopefully, the waiting will be the hardest part.
3 days ago
Affordable Housing Groups Discuss Plans, Ponder Challenges
Local groups like Habitat for Humanity and Athens Land Trust successfully build and renovate "affordable" homes, but they face tough battles on several fronts: high local land costs and, sometimes, neighbors who don't welcome affordable homes into their neighborhood. "Everybody is in favor of affordable housing—until it goes in next to you," Athens Housing Authority Director Rick Parker said at a Federation of Neighborhoods panel on affordable housing earlier this month. Parker sometimes works with the other groups to facilitate building affordable homes.
Doctor bills, bad deals on cars and payday loans rack up debts that people "never can get out from under," Heather Benham, Athens Land Trust's housing director, told the group. "They owe tons and tons of money for these cars. It's just a scam thing." And people with bad credit may not qualify even for "affordable" units, Habitat director Spencer Frye said. "We're going to make you fix your credit." In Athens, many older apartment complexes have high vacancy rates (because students prefer the fancier new ones), but rental prices on those apartments haven't come down, Benham said, and the land trust hasn't been able to buy an apartment complex at a price that would "make the deal work." Still, the land trust has built a successful 96-unit mixed-income rental development (known as Fourth Street Village), she said. Local housing costs are also driven up by students looking for off-campus rentals, although UGA now encourages students to live on campus, and those who do tend to have higher grades, panelists said.
Federal money for affordable housing is scarce these days, and "there's been a 15- or 20-year moratorium on building new public housing," the government-owned subsidized apartments which the Athens Housing Authority administers, Parker said. Despite an 800-person waiting list, Athens is "relatively right-sized" with existing public housing, he estimated. "We're not looking at building public housing per se at this point," he said, but rather mixed-income housing or redeveloping derelict properties, sometimes using federal tax credits that are available to develop affordable housing.
Neighbors' fears about affordable housing—crime, lowered property values, etc.—are mostly "myth," Parker said. But Americans have become accustomed to living in economically segregated suburbs since World War II, he added. "The biggest single solution is: Are we willing to accept our neighbors?" If we are, suggested ACC Commissioner Andy Herod, "the other model is to have 'inclusionary' zoning, where you have different-sized lots, where you have a big expensive house next to a small house… I'm a proponent of that; I know several of the other commissioners are. The question, though, is whether the public is willing to accept it."
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