City Council Special Called Meeting

CITY OF STONECREST, GEORGIA Honorable Mayor Jason Lary, Sr. Council Member Jimmy Clanton, Jr. – District 1 Council Member Rob Turner- District 2 Council Member Jazzmin Cobble – District 3 Council Member George Turner- District 4 Tammy Grimes – District 5 CITY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES June 16, 2020 6:00 p.m. Virtual Meeting Available to the Public via YouTube Live and in person I. CALL TO ORDER: Mayor Jason Lary II. ROLL CALL: All members present. III. PUBLIC HEARING a. Property Tax Increase Motion 1- was made by Mayor Jason Lary to open the Public Hearing and was seconded by Council Member Jimmy Clanton. Motion passed unanimously. Deputy City Manager Plez Joyner read aloud the state requirements pertaining to the Property Tax Increase. There were no comments in person and City Clerk Megan Reid read the emailed comments aloud. Dave Marcus- Rockland Road, Stonecrest This hearing is not just about moving millage from DeKalb County to Stonecrest. It is indirectly about the city government making a large expansion in the city’s operations. These are very uncertain financial times. Is this is the time for Stonecrest to spend effort adding a large new department, especially if there is no detailed financial model that shows the city can pay for delivering Public Works for the new tax revenue that we would get? 1  As of April 30, we had taken in $1.9 million less in revenue in 2020 then by the same date in 2019, not including SPLOST. 1.9 million dollars less than last year. That is 17pct - almost one-fifth - of the city’s budget for the whole year, that hasn’t yet appeared We don’t have a finance manager to help steer the ship. We don’t have a finance director to help in planning our course. We don’t have a purchasing manager to make sure that our purchasing is tightly managed. We haven’t had a city manager for almost 6 months and haven’t started a recruitment campaign for one. (And do we continue to pay Jacobs the same amount as if those positions were filled? I believe we do.) At least as of two weeks ago, no one in the city had started grappling with what to do about the shortfall. The council was told that that the city was waiting for the regular midyear budget review, which for some reason has not been moved up, as if this was financially a normal year. With so many financial and management positions unfilled, and staring down the barrel of a large budget shortfall, the city needs to figure out how to better do the things that we’re doing today. The city needs to figure out how to do the things in the comprehensive plan that we have skipped doing, such as conducting a feasibility study for a police force and creating an economic develoment plan. That was supposed to be done in 2019. Is this the time to think about bringing on a large new department? My opinion is that the city should put it off for a year, deal with the budget shortfall, and get the basics right first. Then expand. Motion 2- was made by Mayor Jason Lary to close the public hearing and was seconded by Council Member Rob Turner. Motion passed unanimously. Mayor and Council made comments. 2  IV. ADJOURNMENT Motion 3- was made by Council Member Mayor Jason Lary to adjourn and was seconded by Mayor Rob Turner. Motion passed unanimously. Read and adopted in the regular meeting of the City Council held on this _____ day of _______________, 2020. __________________________ Mayor Jason Lary ATTEST: _______________________________ Megan P. Reid, City Clerk 3