After five failed motions Thursday night, June 18, underlined the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners' divisions over spending priorities, Chairman David Bennett cast his tiebreaker vote in a 4-3 decision reverting the fiscal 2027 budget back to the version presented at the beginning of a June 9 public hearing.
"Well, we have heard proposals for the original budget. We've heard proposals for (taking) out the additional sheriff's staff that was added last week," Bennett summarized at one point, before the final decision. "We've heard a motion for (keeping) the trash (collection sites system) like it was proposed last week…. We've heard go to 10 trash stations and a 5 percent cut across the board. What else?"
The approved $76.25 million budget means that, for now at least, county staff leaders can move forward with their earlier plan to close 10 of the county's original 22, currently all unstaffed, solid waste collection centers and staff the remaining 12 centers three days each per week but limit their hours of operation, by Jan. 1. It also means that the Bulloch County Sheriff's Office will not be allocated cash to hire six additional deputies.
On the other hand, this "final" adopted budget for the fiscal year beginning Wednesday, July 1, means that those items, which had been abortively added to the proposed budget during the June 9 special meeting, will no longer add approximately one-third (0.34) mill to overall spending. So, that should allow a partial rollback of their general government property tax rate from 11.35 mills to around 10 mills, as previously predicted.
What changed?
Two things changed from the first meeting to the second. Commissioner Nick Newkirk, who had been absent June 9 because of an emergency, was back last Thursday, and indeed the board had perfect attendance.
Meanwhile, whether this had any effect or not, Commissioner Toby Conner had lost his District 2, Seat B re-election bid in the June 16 Republican runoff to challenger Dr. Ted Redman, who ran in opposition to tax increases. But Conner's term lasts through December,
One directive added during the June 9 meeting — on a motion of Commissioner Ray Davis, seconded by Commissioner Anthony Simmons and approved 4-1 — would have funded enough new personnel to keep 18 or 19 of the trash collection centers open on a six-day weekly alternating scheduling with nine or 10 of the centers open, three days each. Only three unfenced centers would have closed.
The previous week's other addition had been on a 3-2 vote for funding six new Sheriff's Office employee positions requested by Sheriff Noel Brown. These had been cut along with 15 other new positions requested by various department and agency heads and then left out of the budget by central staff under the commissioners' instructions to balance the budget without spending from reserves.
Last Thursday, county Chief Financial Officer Kristie King reported back that keeping the additional waste centers open with 10 added attendants and a supervisor and employing the six new sheriff's department personnel would add $1,549,629 to the budget.
Of that, the county government would receive around $115,000 reimbursed by the Board of Education and independent schools for school resource officers, leaving about $1,435,000 to come from property taxes. That would amount to about a 0.34-mill addition to the property tax rate, King estimated.
"So the total proposed budget that we have right now is $77,799,736," she said.
But the commissioners, after their discussion and series of dead or defeated motions and with one final motion and the evening's second tiebreaker vote, shrank that $77.8 million budget back to the previous $76.25 million.
Newkirk's viewpoint
Newkirk was the first commissioner to speak on the topic and started with an apology for not having been there to say some things at the previous meeting.
"I think adding and manning all 19, or 18, stations for a million dollars is way too much," he said. "I think there's other options out there. I think we could just man the 10 busiest, and kind of keep those on the outside edge."
He suggested keeping 16 trash collection centers, which he called stations, throughout the county, and opening and closing gates and using security cameras and code enforcement officers to protect them while alternately staffing no more than 10 at a time.
"I do not agree that we need to add the six sheriff's positions. …," Newkirk also said.
"Before I ran for this office, all I heard from citizens was we need to lower taxes, lower taxes and lower taxes and growth," Newkirk said. "That's one of the reasons why I ran. The last two years and plus this year, we've lost five of the original commissioners that were on here because the citizens spoke loud and clear on what they wanted to do. They are tired of the budgets going up. They want cuts."
Revenue from the Floating Local Option Sales Tax, or FLOST, approved by county voters last fall "was supposed to have been a dollar-for-dollar swap out for the budget," he said. "We get $6 million, that should be coming $6 million off. … Bulloch County does not have a tax issue, we have a spending issue, and we have to rein that in."
Bennett then asked King to summarize where the county stood with spending from its "reserve," or accumulated general-fund balance, last year and this.
The fiscal 2026 budget, now ending, had budgeted a $2.2 million deficit, spending from the balance, King said. The previous, fiscal 2025 budgeted, had ended with a $3 million loss from storm damage costs. But "that should even out," with Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements still arriving, she noted.
"But in order to balance the budget with recurring revenues and not relying on one-time revenues, we are starting with a $2 million hole that we had to dig out of," King said.
Bennett said this spending from the balance had been the practice over several years, diminishing the reserve by about 50% at one point, and that the county is still "trying to collect money back from that."
"I hear the calls for cuts, but I can tell you that nothing is getting cheaper around here, either," Bennett said. "I also know that if we don't pay back this money to the reserve and quit dipping into it, we're going to have continued financial problems."
He said he agreed with Newkirk that the county shouldn't be "spending money above the budget" and noted that the previous version of the budget had been balanced.
"But I can also tell you that with the trash issues in this county, the staff was asked to come up with a plan that was budget-neutral," Bennett said. "The plan that they came up with was to man 10 stations. There was a lot of pushback on that. There was a lot of concern about it. If we're going to do things in this county to approve services, it's going to cost money."
Newkirk at first said he was offering a motion "to not approve this budget and go back to the original budget from last year." But after Conner asked if this would mean doing nothing about the trash centers situation, and Bennett stated his understanding of Newkirk's motion, he rescinded it.
➤ Motion 1
Newkirk then made a motion to reduce the funded trash collection centers from 18 to 10, not fund the six added sheriff's officers and "do a 5% cut across the budget." This motion died for lack of a second.
➤ Motion 2
Commissioner Timmy Rushing said he was making a motion, as he had during the previous meeting, "to give the sheriff his six positions" and leave the trash centers "like they are." Simmons seconded this motion. Commissioner Ray Mosley joined in supporting it, but the evening's first 3-3 tie resulted. Bennett cast his tiebreaker vote "to deny" the motion, so it failed 4-3.
➤ Motion 3
Commissioner Davis then offered a motion to "leave the trash as we approved it and … remove the six officers …." In other words, he was still for funding the larger number of collection centers, but not the added sheriff's positions. This died for lack of a second.
➤ Motion 4
Then Conner offered a motion to "go back to the budget we previously had, except the $2 million" for replenishing the fund balance. This also died for lack of a second, although it was brought back as the motion that eventually passed.
➤ Motion 5
But meanwhile, Newkirk offered a motion for a "30 days spending resolution" to carry the county government through July, in effect an extension of the fiscal year 2026 budget for one month into fiscal 2027.
"Maybe by the end of 30 days we'll have our budget ready, because obviously we've got issues," he said.
King said she didn't know, legally, how to do this. George Rountree, county retained attorney from the Brown Rountree firm filling in for staff County Attorney Jeff Akins, said he was not prepared to answer the question. Bennett never called for second on this one.
Motion 4 reborn
Commissioner Ray Mosley then, in effect, resurrected Conner's previous motion.
"In my opinion, we need to have our budget balance and move forward by July 1st because — What is today? Today is the 18th, and we'd need to have called meetings, and it's almost impossible. If Mr. Conner wants to put that motion on the floor again …"
Conner said, "I will, I'll put that motion the same way, on the floor, Ms. Kristie's original budget."
Mosley seconded, and Simmons joined Conner and Mosley in voting in favor. But Davis, Newkirk and Rushing voted "all opposed."
After Bennett said he was breaking the tie "to approve the budget like it stands," King noted that this budget, as she previously presented it, would include closing half of the collection centers and staffing 10.
Then Conner objected, saying, "We're not doing nothing with the trash. … We're getting too much kickback from that right now. If we do that, we're going to have to take our time."
But County Manager Chris Eldridge said the plan to staff 10 centers was "a net zero" proposal with essentially "no change budgetarily," from keeping the centers as they are, and King said the net cost was about $15,000.
Rountree told Bennett he understood the motion, second and vote to have already occurred as stated.
"So to clarify again, the motion that passed was the budget as proposed by Ms. King last week, less the amendments," Bennett said. "The motion passes four to three. Moving on to the next item. …"