WE WELCOME YOUR COMMENTS BELOW
Ellis cuts development department staff to 45
by Jonathan Cribbs
jonathan@dekalbchamp.com
DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis reduced the county’s development department by 62 employees last week, bringing the total number of department employees to 45 – a reaction to the recession and the county’s sagging construction industry.
“We’re going to be a more efficient government,” Ellis told a group of reporters June 17.
Though 62 were laid off, more than half of them “may” find other county employment, Ellis said. Officials identified 35 open positions within the government and encouraged departed development workers to apply, he said. The pay scale for those jobs varies, he said.
Bill Burbank, an inspector who was laid off, spoke before the County Commission on June 23. He said the department treated him “like a child.”
“Take a closer look at how the development department is funded,” he said.
The department of 45 now only has four inspectors left, he said.
“I know that they cannot cover the county and do quality inspections, zoning included,” he said.
Though the development department’s staff was essentially cut in half last week, Ellis said it brought the department’s number in line with comparable surrounding counties. The layoffs were an improvement from an earlier scare, however. Ellis abruptly stopped planned layoffs that would have cut the department to 19, in early June, claiming he had not signed off on them.
Shortly before a county commission Budget, Finance and Audit Committee meeting on June 9, Ellis told department employees he had developed a plan to save a good number of their jobs–by shifting $2.5 million, a move that would have required a tax increase, according to finance director Mike Bell. The on-the-spot announcement irritated commissioners.
Ellis said he refused to accept a development department of 19 workers. “That would have had the effect of creating a moratorium on development in DeKalb County,” he said.
County officials have found $1 million in the budget that was lost to faulty record keeping, and county employees will not be paid for one holiday this year. Both are paying for the remaining department employees.
Some department employees and county critics said Ellis and county officials waited too long to cut the department. Ellis disagreed. “I’m not sure that we could have done it more delicately,” he said.
The layoffs are the result of an unexpected decrease in permitting fees, which pay for the development department. County officials expected to receive about $8.2 million permitting fee revenue based on last year’s numbers. Now, they’re expecting nearly half that, county officials said.
Other county departments are paid for with local taxes, and they’re not subject to fluctuations in permitting fee revenue. After the county settled a lawsuit the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association filed in 2000, the development department was set up differently. The association’s lawsuit claimed the county owed it $30 million in refunds for overcharging on permits. The county settled the suit for $1.6 million.
As a result, of the lawsuit settlement the county placed the development department into a special funding category that tied it to permitting fees, putting the department’s budget at the mercy of fluctuations in permit fees paid for by developers.
County spokeswoman Sheila Edwards said there have been no talks to try to tie the department’s funding to a less volatile revenue source.
|
