Athens-Clarke County commissioners agreed last week to add $4 million for affordable housing to Mayor Kelly Girtz’s proposed budget for fiscal 2025.
Combined with the $1 million Girtz already included for a “strike fund” to buy and rehab distressed rental properties when they come on the market, that $5 million total represents the full amount that a 2023 affordable housing study recommended the ACC government devote to housing subsidies each year. In addition to the strike fund, the money can serve as gap financing for new multifamily construction funding by federal tax credits (such as the Bethel Midtown Village redevelopment) or to subsidize single-family home ownership for low-income buyers.
At an earlier work session, Commissioner Jesse Houle called rising housing costs in Athens “a crisis,” and on May 23 they presented a budget proposal that called for $4.6 million in funding for housing. A separate proposal from Commissioner Mike Hamby included the full $5 million.
Neither Houle nor Hamby’s budgets relied on raising the property tax rate, which will remain at 12.45 mills. But revised estimates for property tax revenue indicate that the county will receive $1.7 million more than previously expected, and each commissioner’s plan took about $10 million from reserves. The local government has been running a large fund balance—money left over from the previous fiscal year—because of interest collected on recent years’ influx of federal dollars and a high number of staff vacancies.
Commissioners also tentatively agreed to add $750,000 to the budget to address a pay discrepancy between police and sheriff’s deputies, as well as fund a $40,000 composting educator position, buy higher-quality bulletproof vests for police, boost fire department funding by $700,000 to account for a collective bargaining agreement with the new firefighters’ union, increase funding for the library and the public defenders’ office, start a new leaf and limb-style “bulk waste” pickup program to divert large items like mattresses from the landfill, hire contractors to mow rural right-of-ways, put another $1 million from the general fund toward a SPLOST-funded judicial center and allocate $750,000 in federal funds to a new Center for Racial Justice and Black Futures, among other adjustments.
The underfunded judicial center could still receive more revenue from the voter-approved sales tax through Hamby’s proposal to raise downtown parking rates. Parking fees are split between the ACC government and the Athens Downtown Development Authority, and Hamby said the ADDA could use its share to finance bonds to finish the College Square pedestrian plaza. That would free up SPLOST funds for other projects.
Any remaining details will hopefully be squared away before the commission votes on the budget at a Wednesday, June 5 meeting. Last June, Houle and Hamby were forced to negotiate a final budget on the floor after neither could muster enough votes. This year, “I think we’re so much better and closer than we were in the past. I don’t think you would hit each other,” Mayor Pro Tem Ovita Thornton joked.
The commission is scheduled to vote on the budget Wednesday, June 5. It will take effect July 1.
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