Macon-Bibb County commission continues to look at budget adjustments

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Macon-Bibb County Operations and Finance Committee scheduled a special called meeting Friday at noon.

The committee was expected to talk about overtime and holiday pay for county employees, outside agencies, and employee pension contribution. But commissioners only got to a few of those points before getting into the discussion of the proposed forensic audit.

Merging for Public Works, Engineering, Facilities Management, Parks & Beautification, Recreation, Bowden and Tobesofkee into one Department was also on the agenda for Friday’s meeting. Operations and Finance Chairman, Virgil Watkins, suggested merging resources with each department to save the county money, but no decisions were made.

The commission is currently working to approve Mayor Robert Reichert’s balanced budget. 

The county could face a $16 million deficit if no adjustments, suggested by the Mayor are made to the budget.

On Thursday, commissioners Elaine Lucas and Joe Allen announced their proposal to conduct a forensic audit for the county.

“We certainly are not saying anybody did anything wrong, but we certainly are in a whole,” said Lucas to commissioners Friday. “We needed to do something that not would not only restore the faith of the community, in what we’re doing, but also answer some questions for us.”

In January, Macon-Bibb’s Assistant to the County Manager for Budget and Strategic planning, told the commission there would be a projected $10 million deficit in the 2019 budget. But some commissioners were shocked to hear the number changed overnight, although it didn’t.

“The mayor presented you a budget that had the 14 number in it and that’s on page one of your book,” said County Manager, Dr. Keith Moffett.

Earlier this month, the mayor’s budget showed the projected $14 million dollar deficit if no changes were made to the budget.

“When you said that you did not like the furlough number, at that time we just said ‘hey, 14 plus 1.2, 1.5, or so gives us the 16,” said Moffett. “So it was just in general conversation that the number 16 came out.”

Although some commissioners want a forensic audit done, it’s not going to happen before the budget. The audit could take up to two years to complete.

“I don’t think it correlates much with our current budget conversations though,” said Watkins.

Watkins supports digging deeper, but he says right now isn’t the time.

“Even if we did a forensic audit and it came back and it showed where there was millions of dollars of incorrect spending, that wouldn’t get us past the point of needing a balanced budget to proceed with our government come July 1st,” said Watkins.

A resolution to go through with looking into getting a forensic auditor will be voted on by the committee of the whole Tuesday. Watkins says although right now isn’t the time, he will vote to move forward with the audit.