Floyd seeks commissioner attention on action items

With the question of the budget and the millage rate out of the way for 2018, Commissioner Hal Floyd is looking to move forward on several items he believes need a quick fix.

During the September commission meeting’s comments portion of the night, Floyd brought up an e-mail he sent out the week before on priorities he wanted to move forward on in the coming months.

Topping the ten bullet point list included working out with the Board of Assessors why the tax digest is going down year to year.

He also sought commission support on determining a specific list of items that need funding before the November vote on the 2020 Special Purpose, Local Option Sales Tax extension, digging further into the idea for paying for employee health care costs via self-insurance, establishing a future landfill fund, roof and plumbing repairs at the Polk County Jail, a roof repair for an airport hangar, revisiting the hire of firefighters, seed money for the Land Bank authority, further adjusting low starting pay for positions in the county government and providing updates on the landfill litigation.

Floyd said all were important to him in a follow-up interview last week, but among those he wanted to tackle immediately were roof and plumbing issues at the Polk County Jail, and the roof repair at the hangar.

“Both of those have a return on investment,” Floyd explained. “If we can increase rentals at the airport with the repair of the hangar, and if more inmates can be housed at the jail, then we can have a little more revenue.”

Those were among items he also wished to address during the county’s finance committee meeting.

He also said he understood the impending pay study from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia was forthcoming in October, but wasn’t expecting back answers from the already-funded study until the early months of 2019.

So what Floyd wants to do instead is increase some starting pay for employees in specific departments like in public safety and 911 operators.

He said there are “things we can do to correct some of those issues” before getting the forthcoming pay study back.

Floyd previously brought up adjusting salaries and providing for additional money for some positions when he sought amendments to the 2019 Fiscal Year budget during the commission’s Aug. 22 special session, but many of those were put forth without a second or voted down for consideration at the time.

He said it was his goal to keep working toward these issues and more.

“I’m going to have to keep it in front of the commissioners,” he said.

Especially for one item in particular he hopes to tackle in October. Floyd wants to meet with Polk County’s Board of Assessors to gain a better understanding of why there have been decreases year over year in the tax digest, and what potential solutions there are to increasing revenue from property taxes annually.

Commissioners have discussed some items that provide potential for future revenue sources. Among the items covered during the work session was a discussion about the establishment of a land bank, which would help the cities and county sell properties they hold collectively and provide revenue to then purchase other land to sell for commercial or industrial purposes, or to redevelop.

Additionally, Commissioner Scotty Tillery also is getting close to completing a study of the fines and fees set in place for individual business between residents and the county, like the costs incurred for end-users who need specific county services like building inspections, as an example.

See this week’s story on the Land Bank on Page A1, and on the work being done on fees on Page A7 for more information on those subjects.