Category Archives: Hawkinsville Posts
Hawkinsville / Pulaski Animal Control
I am very embarrassed to admit that although I have been on the city council some 13 years, I had never visited our animal control shelter. A few weeks ago, our office cat went missing so my wife Vonnie went to the shelter to see if Butch Chafin (our animal control officer) had picked him up. He had not but Vonnie came home upset about the number of animals at our shelter. Butch does a good job but we (the city and county) have not given him the tools, resources, knowledge, or facilities to run that shelter in a first class manner. There are too many dogs for the number of cages, cats are in the same building, adoption procedures need to be improved, and some animals were reaching end of their allotted “time.”.
So this put Vonnie on a mission. And when Vonnie is on a mission, guess what? Shelly is on a mission. I visited the facility and then visited a great facility in Cochran in order to compare. We have LOTS of room for improvement. However, I want to let everyone know that improvements have already started – things work SLOWLY in government but great things ARE going to happen.
- Vonnie got a great home for one of the dogs and then posted pictures of the other dogs and that got re-posted on Facebook. Now several of the dogs have been adopted.
- Fencing is being donated to the city and our workers will install the fencing at the facility in order to give the dogs a place to run and provide a holding pen.
- We are taking a large portable building there and will convert it to the cat facility in order to separate the dogs and cats. (Update: We are adding to the existing structure rather than moving this portable building)
- We have pronounced our facility as a NO KILL shelter.
- One of my fellow commissioners has gone and visited the facility in Perry. We plan on having ALL commissioners visit our facility as a group in January.
- We plan on working with groups such as the one in Cochran to get plans and procedures in place to get all animals adopted and cared for.
- All animals will be posted on a city maintained animal control Facebook page to help adoptions and lost pets.
- We will find some training for our animal control officer to attend.
- I plan on putting in next year’s budget (July 2018 – June 2019) enough money to renovate/expand our facility and make it TOP NOTCH. We will improve the conditions.
Hawkinsville is a first class community and even our feline and canine citizens deserve first class care.
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City Water Issues – 2017
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Yeah, I really don’t like UGA….. But…..
As a graduate of Georgia Tech, it is instilled in me not to like UGA. From the liberal academics to the overrated football team, I just don’t like them. But even this Yellow Jacket will have to admit it when something good comes from that school. Hawkinsville / Pulaski County is one of only a few ARCHWAY PARTNERSHIP COMMUNITIES within the state of Georgia. The Archway Partnership is a program of the University System that aspires to help communities solve problems, reach goals, and do transformative work by allocating the resources of the University System and partnering to help the communities utilize their own resources as well. The program is a win-win for all involved. The Communities get resources that would otherwise not be feasible from either a logistical or a financial limitation. The University gets to provide students with real-life opportunities to better education and train them. The students get to do important work to show to future potential employers.
We have been involved in the Archway Partnership for over 5 years now and the benefits are real and noticeable. In the area of Leadership, Archway has led an adult leadership program that has now trained over 200 residents and got them involved in all aspects of our community. The adult leadership program has been such a success, that they are now self-sustaining with their own 501-C3 organization. In addition to training, each year’s group does a community project that does GOOD within our town. From providing protective armor to our Sheriff’s department, to providing defibrillators to community venues, to providing rural water pumping equipment to our fire department, to providing trash cans to our downtown and much more. The leadership initiative also includes a youth leadership component that is providing insight to community concerns as well as getting feedback from this demographic as we seek to improve our community.
In the area of Economic Development, Archway has helped with many RFP (Request for Proposals) that different companies or the state of Georgia sends out to highlight what our community has to offer to potential businesses or industries.
Also under the heading of Development, Archway has been instrumental in helping revitalize our downtown. From Beautification efforts (through developing a Master Gardner’s program) to helping develop a Downtown Merchant’s Association, Archway has led the efforts.
Archway is a vital partner (with our Family Connections Program) in bringing the TEEN MAZE to our schools every other year. TEEN MAZE provides a gaming environment where students are presented with real life situations that often complicate their expected path to graduation. Over 200 volunteers (from our community of slightly over 10,000 people) help make this event a rousing success.
Archway helped grow a local at-risk teenager program – Life League. Life League is now in multiple counties and strives to teach at-risk students real life situational events such as How to perform in an interview, How to tie a tie, why work-ethics and being on time are important. While using basketball to attract the young people, real education is being conducted.
Archway has brought the resources of the Pharmacy School of UGA to help our local Hospital research problem areas such as why people are not taking their medicines as prescribed. They have helped our hospital with IRS requirements to keep / prove their non-profit status.
Archway has helped with the city / county relationships by being an unbiased middle man. They provide a safe non partial environment to iron out differences in tax equity and service delivery areas. So much so, that now Hawkinsville and Pulaski county have served as models for other communities on city-county relations.
They have helped us rebrand ourselves and helped design a new website to promote the new brand.
Archway has helped with Design Charets, signage design and placement, and more from the college of Environmental design.
Archway has even helped area businesses such as Hardy Farms look at ways to promote Agri-Tourism. They are helping Lamar Pecans develop a Pecan Cracking machine.
I could go on and on.
The reason I am writing this post is that I am currently attending the annual Archway summit at UGA. The Summit allows us to interact with other Archway Communities so that we can see their best practices and understand what has worked for other communities. It also allows us to see “behind the curtain” to the staff and students behind the Archway Partnership. I sometimes just think that our own Michelle Elliott (our local Archway Professional) is the magical OZ that gets it all done. The summit allows me to see the people backing up Michelle to pull off these extraordinary efforts.
The picture below is the UGA Men’s choir entertaining us at the summit. Except for the UGA fight song, they were pretty good. So, while I still don’t like UGA, I’ll have to admit, the Archway Partnership is a great program. Even UGA gets it right occasionally.
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Conflicts of Interest….
“When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.”
― Ron Paul
Recently, several articles about conflicts of interest, have been hitting the political pundit’s websites;
http://www.peachpundit.com/2015/11/08/georgia-legislators-struggle-with-term-conflict-of-interest/
is a very interesting article about conflicts, the appearance of conflicts, and the problems that they cause at the state level. I have no idea if any of the legislators mentioned in this article truly have some ethical conflicts with their businesses doing business with the state or not, but they should each either QUIT doing business with the state or QUIT their legislative positions or post their own article describing why THEIR situation is not a conflict. While we all should be innocent until proven guilty, politicians have a bad enough rap without doing ANYTHING to damage their (or the entire group’s) reputation.
Any politician needs to be extremely careful about even the appearance of a conflict of interest. I was maintaining the city’s website and charging them around $1,000/year. They were my client, before I got into politics. But once I became a city councilman, I stopped charging the city for maintaining their site. I probably COULD have kept charging – as long as we bid out the contract and as long as I recused myself from any discussions or votes, but I thought it best to just not charge the city. So for almost a dozen years, I did the city website for free – saving the city and citizens thousands of dollars.
Later on, as a conflict arose between a local business owner and the city of Hawkinsville (on a very unrelated matter), a particular businesses owner ACCUSED me of having a conflict of interest. She thought I was getting paid to do the city’s website. She had not bothered to ask anyone. That particular business owner posted on Facebook (July 25, 2014) (with a picture of me), “How in the h*** you is the one doing the website for hawkinsville and you on the commission broad the one of the to decide which person get the job if you are on the broad are have friends are family on the broad you should not get the job it wood not be fair to the people the one how broad on it and did not get it because they do not have friends on the broad or family” (all grammar and spellings were as posted, not mine)
This particular business owner even posted this to 11Alive Newsroom’s Facebook page! She had not bothered to CHECK to see if there was a conflict of interest, she just assumed. But as politicians, we need to go the extra mile removing even the appearance of a conflict. (After I sold my website company, the city and county are now getting the Regional Commission out of Macon to maintain their websites.)
I challenge all of my colleagues to go the extra mile and remove any and all appearances of conflicts. Let’s put our constituents first and our private businesses second.
What are your thoughts?
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Throughout Georgia, City Finances are improving…..
Throughout Georgia, City Finances Continue to Improve, but New Report Shows Recovery from Great Recession is Incremental
A new report from the National League of Cities (NLC) reveals that municipal finances have stabilized in the wake of the Great Recession, but the recession’s effects are still evident in city budgets across the nation. The 30th annual City Fiscal Conditions report found that fiscal impacts of the 2007 recession are much more substantial when compared to similar downturns in 1990 and 2001. However, modest improvements in city fiscal conditions, including an expansion in general fund revenues, led 82 percent of city finance officers to report their cities are better able to meet their financial needs.
With 30 years of historical data, the report surveys city finance officers on their cities’ abilities to meet fiscal needs, factors impacting budgets, tax receipts, and revenue and spending trends and provides a context for how current fiscal conditions compare with previous recession and recovery periods.
Highlights from the Report
General Fund Revenues and Expenditures
Trends in general fund revenues tend to reflect the changing economic and fiscal environment of their cities. General fund expenditures increased 1.5 percent in 2014, with continued growth anticipated into 2015. This was driven largely by investments in employee wages, public safety, and capital projects and infrastructure.
Tax Receipts
Trends in tax receipts provide an understanding of the impacts of the broader economy on city revenues.
- Property tax revenues: Severely impacted by the recession, property taxes registered their first post-recession gains in 2013, and experienced moderate growth in 2014 (2.4 percent) with 1.2 percent growth expected to continue into 2015.
- Sales tax revenues: Sales taxes respond more quickly to economic conditions than property taxes, and showed their first signs of post-recession growth in 2011. Sales tax receipts have grown every year since, but the pace of growth has slowed, with 2.3 percent growth expected in 2015.
- Income tax revenues: Income taxes have been the most volatile tax source during the recovery period, but only about 10 percent of cities have access to income tax. Income tax revenue growth reached a post-recession high in 2012, and is expected to grow by 3.6 percent in 2015. *Hawkinsville has no income tax revenues…..
Budget Impact Factors
A number of factors combine to impact the ability of cities to meet their financial needs. The most impactful factors on city budgets were the value of the local tax base (70 percent), health of the local economy (63 percent) and gas and oil prices (24 percent). Infrastructure needs (48 percent), pension costs (38 percent) and health benefit costs (36 percent) were the most negative impacts on city budgets.
“City budgets have been put to the test, and are proving resilient even with limited fiscal tools and revenue raising capacity,” said National League of Cities Research Director Christiana McFarland, the report’s author. “Looking to the future, cities will continue to face of major budget stressors like infrastructure, pensions and healthcare, and will need to make tradeoffs to maintain a fiscal balance.”
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My TOP Goals for 2016 for the City of Hawkinsville
Continue the downtown beautification efforts.- Refund our dilapidated housing efforts. (We previously identified 106 structures that are dilapidated, blighted, and past the point of repair and are unlivable. Due to previous efforts, 42 of these structures have been torn down – most without any tax dollars. We need to continue this push, but a budget item must be funded for the few cases where the CITY has to tear down the structure (subsequently putting a lien on the property to recoup those dollars)).
- Prepare a balanced budget that does NOT raise our citizen’s millage rate. (We have managed to keep our millage rate at the same rate for over 20 years).
- Continue to improve and market our Hawkinsville Harness Training Facility.
- In conjunction with DDA, I would like to see the city purchase a vacant downtown building, fix it up, and rent it to a new business (even at a reduced rate), with the understanding that after one year, the business would either purchase or begin paying market rent. If purchased, we would use those funds to do another, and then another, and then…..
- Continue to work to improve the River Market and the River Walk.
- Continue to work with our partners at the Arts Council to better promote and utilize our Historic Opera House.
- BRING IN INDUSTRY in our industrial park.
- BRING IN ANOTHER GROCERY STORE.
- Continue to help grow our existing businesses.
- Continue to help lead with GMA (Georgia Municipal Association) in helping forge state and federal legislation as it deals with cities. (and stopping the influx of unfunded mandates).
- Improve our airport.
- Resurface more streets within our city.
- Modernize our software system to allow for direct drafts and debit cards.
- Increased usage of Social Media by both myself and the city as a whole.
- Begin working on our next SPLOST planning to include more recreation on this side of the river. (new post coming soon on this)
- Begin working on our next SPLOST planning to include the new City Hall.
- Continue to look for grant opportunities to help us with our aging infrastructure.
- Continue to work with the county on doing a better job of tax equity between the City and County and the continued consolidation of services.
- Expand and maintain our city cemetery.
- Expand our Natural Gas Capacity.
This is not a complete list NOR is it in priority order.
What do YOU think we should add to this list? I would love to hear YOUR concerns….
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Surprise me!
I love being surprised. As I was leaving my lunch today, a young lady spoke to me about the previous post that I did concerning pot holes. She was giving her approval to the fact that I was trying to be responsive to the needs, while at the same time, kinda chiding me for “you were really asking for it.” I sat down at her table to finish the conversation and finish my banana pudding dessert.
The discussion continued on local politics. This particular 20 something young lady actually watches all of our commission meetings on ComSouth Channel 100. She also watches all of the school board meetings on ComSouth Channel 10. She not only watched them, but she really pays attention to them. I spent the next 30 minutes answering questions about downtown, about the city’s pension fund, Tax Equity, about taxes, about the debt on our Spec Building, and about Industrial Development. She was very informed about her community and asked excellent questions.
The discussion then turned to national politics, and in particular the presidential race. She knew the candidates and their positions. She had an opinion and could rationally share it while leaving an opening that she could be wrong. Most people either don’t have an opinion or will defend their ill informed decision regardless of the facts.
I was surprised because this is really not the norm. The majority of people are really pretty uninformed and/or apathetic to local government. And to find a 20ish young lady with that much knowledge and interest was really refreshing. I wish more people would get involved. We have so many opportunities to serve in this town. From the Chamber, to the Arts Council, to Relay for Life, to Rotary, Pulaski Tomorrow, and yes, even to local politics. There are many ways to get involved. Getting involved gives you a louder voice. And when it comes to how groups, organizations or city commissions, are spending local monies or investing time in community projects, a loud voice helps.
Thanks for surprising me. I love being surprised!
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Georgia Truckers File Suit in Attempt to Limit Use of Local Sales Taxes on Fuel
A class-action lawsuit filed recently by the Georgia Motor Trucking Association and several trucking companies challenges House Bill 170, Georgia’s recent transportation funding legislation. The truckers contend sales taxes imposed by local governments (a.k.a., the City of Hawkinsville and every other city) on motor fuel can only be expended for “providing and maintaining an adequate system of public roads and bridges” and “road and construction maintenance.” The lawsuit cites a provision of the Georgia Constitution that limits the expenditure of state sales taxes on motor fuels to those purposes.
The suit seeks to have local sales taxes collected on motor fuel sales placed in an escrow account pending resolution of the lawsuit, jeopardizing over $500 million in local sales taxes used to fund essential city, county and school needs. Cities in Georgia have a lobbying group, The Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) and GMA believes the proposed diversion of local sales tax receipts is unlikely. However, Hawkinsville and other Cities should be aware of the possibility that the proceeds of taxes on the sale of motor fuels could be withheld. This would be very harmful to our city.
GMA disagrees with the claims in the lawsuit because it ignores the fact that local sales tax revenues:
- are not imposed by the State;
- are not eligible for appropriation by the State;
- are specifically authorized by the Georgia Constitution for the provision of local government services or for educational purposes;
- are dedicated by Georgia statutes for specific local purposes other than transportation; and
- in some instances may be contractually dedicated to fund local projects.
Tom Gehl, GMA’s Director of Governmental Relations, notes that the truckers made a similar argument during the debate on HB 170 during the 2015 legislative session, which lawmakers rejected. It is my hope that the courts will throw out this lawsuit because it has no standing. LOCAL vs. STATE.
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Hawkinsville…. By the Numbers….
Another question I get asked often about is the city’s budget. While we are almost a $9,000,000 annual budget, most of that is related to the incomes and expenses associated with our different “profit centers” or “Enterprise Funds” as they are called within the government functions. Basically, we attempt to make each enterprise fund pay for itself. In other words, we want the water fees to be enough to cover the costs in the water department.
But some expenses do not have income associated with them. For example, we pay the sheriff’s department almost $600,000 per year. But the fines collected go to the county, so we have no associated revenue’s with that expense. So what pays for items such as that? Well, those are paid out of the general fund. The general fund gets its revenues from any profits from the enterprise funds (over and above the costs), as well as property taxes and Local option sales taxes (and some other smaller taxes), and Franchise fees, and insurance premiums, and some other things.
SO…. Here is a breakdown…
REVENUE:
The city of Hawkinsville generates revenues multiple ways:
The Net profit from the services that we offer (ex, Water, Gas, Trash Pickup, etc) is slightly over $500,000 (most of this is generated from our ability to sell Natural gas. We receive almost another half million from Property taxes. Those two income sources combined amounts to almost half of the net revenue of the City. As the chart above indicates, we also get significant monies from LOST (Local Option Sales Taxes) 17%, Insurance Premium Taxes 13%, Franchise Fees 12%, and Vehicle Title Taxes 5%. We also get another $120,000 from fees such as Business licenses, Fines, Hotel/Motel Taxes and our animal control expenses, among others).
EXPENSES:
You can see elsewhere in this booklet the expenses associated with the enterprise funds, but there are lots of other expenses as well. Expenses associated with overall goals of the city such as public safety and streets and roads.
| Expenses | ||
| Police | $ 602,300.00 | |
| Fire | $ 159,390.00 | |
| EMA | $ 22,860.00 | |
| Road and Streets | $ 456,930.00 | |
| Animal Control | $ 70,300.00 | |
| $1,311,780.00 |
In order to control escalating costs as well as a better service delivery strategy for our citizens, we have consolidated many services with the County. While we no longer have a city police department, we still pay the county Sheriff’s office almost $600,000 a year to provide a level of service to our citizens. The city/county fire departments combined but we still pay almost $200K per year for fire/EMA (Emergency Management Agency) protection. We pay almost half a million a year on improving our city roads and of course, these roads produce no income. (The county does reimburse half of Animal Control Expense) . Of course there is overhead such as administration salaries, utilities, etc. that also have to be paid.
ENTERPRISE FUNDS:
The city has several accounts known as Enterprise funds. These are the incomes and expenses associated with the services that we offer. For example we have a water & sewage department, we have a sanitation department, a natural gas department, etc. The items (water, trash pickup, gas, etc) are services/products that we sell. As previously mentioned, the net profit from these services amounts to 23% ($532,195) of our net revenue that we use to pay for the non-revenue generating expenses such as police and fire protection. Here is the breakdown on our Enterprise Funds:
| ENTERPRISE FUNDS | INCOME | EXPENSES | NET PROFIT |
| Water/Sewage | $ 1,348,530 | $1,198,965 | $ 149,565 |
| Gas | $ 3,360,450 | $2,685,700 | $ 674,750 |
| Harness Track | $ 140,050 | $ 248,840 | $ (108,790) |
| Solid Waste | $ 365,375 | $ 397,710 | $ (32,335) |
| Inert Landfill | $ 137,400 | $ 123,485 | $ 13,915 |
| Econ Dev. | $ 56,100 | $ 248,950 | $ (192,850) |
| CBDG Grant | $ 465,000 | $ 475,000 | $ (10,000) |
| WorkforceCen. | $ 10 | $ 27,230 | $ (27,220) |
| Cemetery | $ 30 | $ 30 | $ – |
| ‘13 Chip Grant | $ 37,900 | $ 38,040 | $ (140) |
| ‘14 Chip Grant | $ 306,000 | $ 306,300 | $ (300) |
| Hotel/MotelTax | $ 41,600 | $ 26,000 | $ 15,600 |
| $ 6,258,445 | $5,776,250 | $ 482,195 |
There are many hard expenses that don’t bring in Revenue. And Even when we get some State Grants like the CBDG (Community Block Development Grant), there are often some expenses associated with it that go above what the grant gives us. Basically our goal each year is to set the fees associated with each service such that it pays all the expenses within that fund. Gas is the one profit center does help us offset property taxes.
OTHER INFORMATION:
The city’s budget year runs from July 1 to June 30 each year. We begin planning the next fiscal year budget in January each year. Our total budget (Enterprise funds and general) is $8.9 million. The city budget is where we outline our priorities for the coming year. How much money should we put in street cleaning? How much in road maintenance? How much in grass cutting? How much on improving blight in our community? We would love to fund everything, but we also have an obligation to keep your taxes as low as possible. And actually, we have done a pretty good job at that. The city’s mileage rate of 5.6% has not changed since 1987. Sure, we’ve seen some years of increase revenue as the tax digest has increased, but we have not increased your mileage rate. We have also stressed consolidation of services with the county whenever we feel that the consolidation will bring about lower costs and/or increased services to our citizens. For example, we pay the county $18,000 a year to collect the city taxes on the same tax bills as the county taxes. This means that you only have to write one check each year. Mail it to the County and they cut us a check for our portion. We have combined our Animal Control, Recreation Departments, Police/Sheriff, Fire, EMA, 911, Codes Enforcement, Tax Collection.
The budget is the most important legislation that we pass. And each and every year we pass a BALANCED BUDGET. Something that the Federal government needs to learn to do. Even as we are implementing this year’s budget, we are planning next years and auditing last years.
Berryhill, Shelly
I completed this simple booklet as a means to increase the transparency of your elected officials. Everything that we do is open and available for you to peruse, but it is easy to get lost in the details. This is just a brief, simple overview that hopefully enlightens you about your tax dollars and the fees that you pay for services. These numbers are sometimes rounded and I make no guarantee that they are 100% accurate, but they are right to the best of my knowledge and ability. Should you have any questions, concerns, or input, please feel free to contact me by any of the methods below:
Contact Me
P O Box 442
Hawkinsville, Ga. 31036
(478) 230-3538
shelly@hawkinsvillega.net facebook: shellyberryhill
www.shellyberryhill.com twitter: @shellyb
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Downtown Beautification….
Following input from the downtown merchants that the appearance of downtown had to be improved before encouraging tours, events or economic Development, we have:
The Chamber, Pulaski Tomorrow and Youth Leadership did a downtown clean up in June.
The City, Archway and the Women’s Prison- developed a plan to get the existing prison detail more involved in the upkeep and maintenance of the Commerce Street area, including the eight irrigated flower beds and Cabero Park.
The City and Archway have engaged the Master Gardeners of Central Ga to help us by telling us how best to landscape downtown and develop a sustainability plan for the future. They will also be assisting us with a design to make Cabero Park more usable and attractive. This is a current ongoing project.
The Women’s Prison Detail has cleaned out the beds and with the help of the City of Hawkinsville public works department and removed everything that the Master Gardeners said we had managed to kill. This is also in accordance with gardening practices where fall would be a time to prepare for planting. Much of the soil had no nutrients and irrigation systems needed maintained. Dead plants and trees have been removed.
In June of this year, Pulaski Tomorrow Class of 2015 raised over $2,600 for waste receptacles for downtown (I think some of the money is going to signage though). About a month ago, they agreed to purchase 6 containers. Ginger Lancaster is coordinating to get a status update on the order.
The Hawkinsville Garden Club contributed $1,000 in September (to the Downtown Development Authority) for the purchase of supplies and materials for the Women’s Prison Detail to purchase gardening tools and plants, etc.
In February, the new Master Gardener classes begin in Central Georgia. A component of the program is dedicated community service to one’s home county. The City of Hawkinsville has agreed that the City could fund the tuition for 4 or 5 local people ($195 each) to go through the program. These individuals would then use their community service hours to train and assist the women’s prison detail on the Commerce street project. This will provide sustainability for the project and valuable job skills training for the women that will improve their outlook upon release.
Also, we applied for (City, Chamber) but did not receive a TPD grant to restore the Way and Way mural and create 2 more. We could reapply next year.
So, yes, as people have indicated, the downtown area needs improvement, but the improvements ARE UNDER WAY. The city has limited resources and often we have to neglect one area in order to work on other areas. Each year we change the areas that we are focusing on (again, due to limited resources). But we ARE focusing currently on improving the looks of our downtown area.
Shelly Berryhill 