A squabble over attendance at the Habersham County budget meetings in March broke out Monday night during a contentious debate over the spending plan.
Commissioner Bruce Harkness questioned many of the items included in the base budget when the county commission met to vote on it on June 24. County Manager Alicia Vaughn publicly scolded the newly re-elected commissioner, saying he should have attended the budget meetings and asked his questions then. Vaughn claimed Harkness only attended one of the budget meetings with department heads, a claim he and county records dispute.
Who attended when
A quick review of the livestream videos taken during all three budget meetings held March 26-28 shows Harkness did attend the budget meetings. The official meeting minutes confirm this.
The first two meeting days were scheduled to last six and a half hours. The last session was scheduled for two and a half hours. Bruce Palmer was the only commissioner who attended every meeting in its entirety. Palmer is retired. Commissioner Jimmy Tench, who is also retired, was a close second. He attended daily and left nine minutes early on the last day.
The public record shows that Harkness attended each day but left early. Commission Chair Ty Akins attended part of the first day and all of the third but was absent on day two. Commissioner Dustin Mealor did not attend any of the county’s budget meetings.
The meetings state that the budget meetings were for “information purposes” only. Department heads and elected officials used the opportunity, as they do every year, to explain their respective budget requests to the commission and senior management for the coming year.
In response to Vaughn’s pointed comment about his attendance record, Harkness said, “I was there for a while each day but not all day every day. The meetings that I did not physically attend, I watched via the county’s livestream.”
Mealor said he did not review the meetings on livestream but did review the information the county clerk provided him.
“I went over the binders provided to me by Brandy [Carnes] and asked questions I had.”
Spending concerns
Harkness has called on the commission to play a more active role in determining what’s included in the budget. He said he thought there would be an opportunity to review the complete document—not just several pages of it—before it came time to adopt it.
“There’s a lot of fixed-income people in this county that are going to be taxed out of being able to live here…” – Habersham County Commissioner Bruce Harkness
This year’s budget calls for a $12.2 million spending increase. Although higher tax assessments account for the increased revenue, Harkness is worried about the impact of out-of-control spending.
“We have to slow down the tax increases,” he said during Monday night’s budget hearing when voicing opposition to the plan.
“There’s a lot of fixed-income people in this county that are going to be taxed out of being able to live here, and a lot of them are our folks, our friends, our family, and a lot of them are ourselves. A lot of us have lived here all our lives and, friends, anything this government right here is spending — we’re reaching in your pockets and taking money out of your pockets to spend it. That’s what it is. Government is taking money out of the working people and the taxpayers’ pockets.”
Harkness continued uninterrupted, adding, “We’re up here spending your money. And no, I’m not happy, and I hope I don’t act like a horse’s rear, and I hope I’m not being offensive in any way, but that’s what I was elected to do, in my opinion, is to try to represent the people to the best of my ability. And I don’t want to be bullied and cowed down. I want to be able to express my opinion and, I think, the opinion of the taxpayers.”
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