Habersham County resident Keith Canup came to Monday night’s county commission meeting ready to speak. He had heard the commission was considering reactivating a decades-old governmental authority that could secure bonds for capital projects, and he wanted nothing of it.
An ‘end run’ around county taxpayers
The county has been searching for ways to pay for new hangars at the Habersham County Airport ever since it gave its COVID relief money to Habersham Medical Center to keep the hospital afloat. County attorney Donnie Hunt spoke specifically about the hangars when explaining what a constitutional industrial authority does to commissioners. Despite strong support for the plan from county administrator Alicia Vaughn and commissioner Bruce Palmer, the four other commissioners stripped it from their meeting agenda during their pre-meeting work session.
Even though the matter was shelved, at least for now, Canup seized the moment to speak out against what he sees as runaway county spending.
“The word I got, you all are trying to end run around the procedures and hang the taxpayers with the airport hangars. You all better not try that. I don’t agree with that. That airport, I don’t give two craps about, and neither does 99% of the people. That’s for the wealthy, not for me. Now if you want to pay for it, you’re going to have to figure it out. Let the airport pay for it,” he said.
Multiple sources with close ties to local government tell Now Habersham they feel the same as Canup. They say reactivating the constitutional industrial authority is an “end run” around county taxpayers. However, they believe the airport hangars are the “smoke and mirrors” obscuring the real intent. The sources, who asked not to be identified, suspect that if the authority is reactivated, it will be used to push through other capital projects, such as those approved in SPLOST now facing budget shortfalls and a new jail.
Different name, same effect
Last summer, Vaughn recommended the creation of a public facilities authority that would have addressed those shortfalls. The commissioners voted it down. Dredging up the decades-old constitutional development authority would have the same effect: the creation of a panel that could accumulate debt that county taxpayers would have to pay without giving taxpayers a say.
The way it works now – and the thing holding up the construction of a new jail – is that in order for the county to secure financing for projects, it must first get approval from voters. Voters decide whether to approve capital spending through referendums. They rejected a bond referendum to build a new jail in 2019.
Authorities, on the other hand, are legal entities that can accrue debt without public input. Such was the case when the Habersham Hospital Authority secured millions in debt for a renovation and expansion project in the mid-2000s. Now, taxpayers are being forced to hand over the hospital to an outside group to keep the hospital alive while, at the same time, being left on the hook to pay off $51 million in bond debt and interest.
Spending concerns
Taxpayer concern over perceived runaway spending has reached a crescendo among many outside observers after commissioners voted to raise taxes last year on top of already higher reappraisals. Following a recent week of budget hearings with county department heads, it appears another tax increase may be on the horizon.
Mealor voted with his fellow commissioners Ty Akins and Palmer last year to raise the millage rate. Afterward, he said he wouldn’t do it again. Mealor’s actions during the April 18 work session may indicate he’s serious about curbing county spending.
Mealor motioned to remove the constitutional industrial authority from the commission’s meeting agenda. Commission vice-chair Bruce Harkness seconded it. The motion passed 4-1, with Commissioner Palmer casting the lone dissenting vote.
Constitutional industrial authority explained
During Monday’s work session, county attorney Hunt explained what a constitutional industrial authority is to commissioners.
According to Hunt, there are two kinds of development authorities: one statutory and one constitutional. County voters approved a constitutional industrial authority in 1964. The county eventually replaced it with the current statutory authority.
Hunt explained that Habersham County was one of about 30 counties that renewed their constitutional industrial authorities back in the early 1980s when the Georgia Constitution was re-written. With that, Habersham County has both constitutional and statutory authority.
The county attorney further explained that the constitutional authority has provisions within the development code that authorizes financing certain projects that qualify for industrial development. One such project would be the financing of the county’s airport hangars.
“As you all are aware, because of some of the shortfall in the E-911 system and a couple of those systems, we are searching for some way to finance those hangars, and this is an option to do that,” Hunt told commissioners.
Outdated and updated
Hunt told commissioners the constitutional authority is outdated and needs to be resubmitted to the Georgia General Assembly. As it now stands, membership on the panel requires three county commissioners, the president of the chamber of commerce of Clarkesville, the chairman of the chamber of commerce of Cornelia, the president of a civic organization, and a member from another organization that Hunt said he couldn’t recall.
Of the seven membership positions, three no longer exist. Hunt told commissioners that reactivating the constitutional industrial authority is relatively simple and immediate.
“It’s very possible for the Chair to appoint the three commissioners and notify the chamber person to reactivate it and, what’s technically required, is to appoint the new members and to file it with the Department of Community Affairs,” he explained.
Hunt informed the commission that he had drawn up a resolution updating the authority’s membership only to include three commissioners and the chamber president. He added that setting the membership at four with three commissioners could limit the amount of debt the authority could incur. It would also require a minimum of three votes to pass anything before the authority.
“I think there is some control by the county commission that it would not be a rogue agency of some sort, and it is possible that it’s a short-term remedy for financing the airport,” Hunt explained.
Following Hunt’s explanation of the constitutional industrial authority, the commissioners did not discuss it. Instead, they voted to remove it from the agenda.
