Sunday, June 21, 2009
News, In this Issue..., Atlanta
How to fix Atlanta
A City Council vote on a proposed tax hike is scheduled for June 29. But will more money repair a broken city?
WATER AND TRANSIT
The proposed budget changes won’t affect the city’s Department of Watershed Management. Nor will it have a direct effect on the city’s transit plans. Nonetheless, water and transit are often cited by Atlantans as problems, and they will likely see changes under the next administration, depending upon who is voted into the mayor’s office and onto City Council next November.
WATER
According to Fitch Ratings, a municipal bond assessment company, Atlanta has the highest water rates in the nation.
“It’s because we are under two federal consent decrees and a $4 billion program to overhaul our water system,” says Janet Ward, public information officer for the Department of Watershed Management. The consent decrees came about in 1998 and 1999 as a result of the decrepit, thoroughly neglected water system the Franklin administration has since inherited.
The good news—or the bad news, depending on how you look at it—is the program is “halfway through,” according to Ward. She says the new budget won’t restore the 97 staffers cut from the department last December, nor will it alleviate scheduled annual water rate hikes, which will begin July 1. On average, Atlanta residents pay about $107 for water each month.
TRANSIT
Though MARTA has the biggest battle for funding, it’s not solely the city of Atlanta’s responsibility.
The biggest transit project on Atlanta’s schedule is the Beltline, which is funded through a tax allocation district. Mayor Franklin, who serves on the board of Atlanta Beltline Inc. (ABI), has pushed the project for most of her tenure.
Last week, Terri Montague, president and chief executive officer of ABI, announced that she will be leaving. Her decision comes at a time when plans for the Beltline—a light rail and alternative transportation loop around the inner city, lined with parks and mixed-used developments—have run out of steam.
Some critics claim Montague has been too generous with Beltline money. They cite the $66 million she paid for a 4.5-mile tract of land owned by Gwinnett County real estate mogul Wayne Mason, who paid $25 million for it when he bought it in 2004. Even if that were not the case, funding is harder to come by than it was when Ryan Gravel, a Georgia Tech doctoral candidate, came up with the idea for the Beltline in 1999.
“But really, it hasn’t come very far since Gravel’s original concept,” says Steve Vogel, president of the Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers. Atlanta’s transit problem goes well beyond the Beltline, he says. It’s a state problem.
“Atlanta and Georgia do not have up-to-date comprehensive transportation plans. What we have are isolated projects, some rather large, that are not part of a larger plan,” he says.
By Stephanie Ramage
On June 29--or June 30, if debate drags on--the Atlanta City Council is expected to vote on fiscal year 2010’s budget, which will include a tax increase after seven years of tax cuts. For the past two years, the city has seen multi-million-dollar budget shortfalls, which have prompted furloughs for police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers.
The proposed budget includes a 3-millage-point tax hike that will bring in $56 million in revenue, money the city’s finance department says will put an end to city furloughs and close the gap in operating expenses.
With a new budget looming and the races for the mayor’s office and City Council heating up, here’s where the city stands, what the proposed tax increase is expected to do, and what it won’t do.
POLICE
Mayor Shirley Franklin instituted furloughs for all public safety workers on Dec. 25, 2008—yes, Christmas Day—cutting the number of police officers on the streets by 10 percent, even though the Atlanta Police Department was already understaffed. Now, police beats throughout the city often go without coverage. The future looks grim. Sgt. Scott Kreher, president of the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, predicts the APD will lose 200 more officers to other cities, and to retirement, by the end of the year, even as crime expands into what were previously relatively crime-free parts of town.
A lot of residents have told the Sunday Paper the police furloughs should end immediately, and if that means passing the 3-millage-point tax increase, so be it. But that still won’t address the city’s longstanding problem of having too few cops.
According to Kreher, the city can save some money and attract new police officers by reconfiguring the APD’s benefits package. Instead of putting so much into pensions, he says, the city can shift money directly into officers’ paychecks, something younger officers are especially keen about at a time when pension funds often amount to dicey investments.
Other IBPO suggestions include using any proposed tax increase to fully fund all the past annual step-pay increases current officers have lost since 2002; instituting a career ladder; reinstating tuition reimbursement for college courses; and stopping current proposed insurance co-pay and pension contribution increases.
Kreher would like to see legislation similar to the “foot beat” ordinance that requires every beat car to be filled before any other units in the zones are manned.
Additionally, the police union wants to be in on any confirmation hearings for the next police chief.
Kreher has some ideas about how to pay for improvements to the department:
--Lobby the state capital to pass legislation forcing a percentage of tax revenue to be earmarked solely for police and fire, as we do for schools.
--Explore an expanded detail by APD in October or November of each calendar year to inspect city business and alcohol licenses to ensure fines and fees are collected.
--Consider having the APD run all its own towing services.
FIRE
To help cover a $140 million budget shortfall, Mayor Franklin slashed 89 firefighter positions from the city’s Department of Fire Rescue for 2009, and cut the department’s budget by $13 million. Though the mayor then asked for a property tax increase to prevent further cuts to public safety, the City Council passed a $14 million tax rollback instead, which prompted cuts of 30 more firefighter positions, decommission a hazmat unit and close Fire Station 7 in the West End. Since then, the fire department has operated with only three men to each engine, though national safety guidelines specify there should be four.
The mayor’s public safety furloughs last Christmas effectively cut 65 more firefighters from the department’s roster. She also ended overtime, making flexible scheduling impossible. At present there is less than one firefighter for each thousand residents, while the national average is 1.5 firefighters for each thousand in cities with more than 500,000 residents.
An engine on Howell Mill Road has been taken off-line, as has a ladder truck on DeKalb Avenue. “Brownouts,” or part-time closings depending on staff availability, have affected two other ladder trucks, and five engines, from Buckhead to Cascade Road.
Lt. Jim Daws, president of the local chapter of the International Association of Firefighters, says it would take a little more than $12 million to do the basics—eliminate firefighter furloughs, reinstate paid relief days, hire an additional 75 firefighters and restore the overtime budget—and the mayor’s proposed tax increase won’t cover that.
“It’s a shame, because the mayor’s asking the council to vote on the basis of public safety, and they still won’t get the public safety they need,” he says. “We will still have brownouts, although to a lesser degree.”
To save money and improve service, Daws supports abolishing Atlanta Fire Rescue in favor of a countywide fire district.
“We have 15 separate fire services in Fulton County—every little town has one—and it’s just foolishness,” he says.
Like Kreher, he wants a revenue stream dedicated solely to public safety to protect its funding from political manipulation.
SANITATION
According to Valerie Bell-Smith, spokeswoman for the city’s sanitation department, last December’s furloughs have meant cutting the garbage collection schedule from five days to four, and staggering yard waste and recycling pick-up on alternate weeks, as opposed to having weekly pick-up.
“We are short-staffed, so sometimes we have to roll over a route,” she says. “That means delaying the pick-up on that route until the next day.”
If the new budget passes, she says, garbage collection will return to its five-day schedule. That would come as a relief to city residents like Randall Cobb, a member of the Midtown Neighborhood Association.
“Recycling is our biggest issue,” he says. “I'm discovering fewer bins on the street because most people were not properly informed. So I suspect they are throwing everything in the regular trash.
“I can also see discontent on the faces of the men and women who work for the sanitation department,” he continues. “They are under too much pressure to do a very difficult job in a shorter period of time. And don’t get me started on the lack of street sweepers and how that’s blocking the storm drains.” SP