ACC Commissioners redirect TSPLOST funds to their own districts, streets

On Tuesday, the Athens-Clarke County Commission approved a new budget which, among its many pages, redirects $1 million in TSPLOST funds to specific neighborhoods around town for traffic calming, bypassing the normal process. In one case, the funds are earmarked for a single street, which happens to be the home of one of the commissioners.

The commission also approved changes to an agreement with the Athens Downtown Development Authority which may be the first step in allowing a new student apartment complex to be constructed downtown.

Lastly, Clerk of Commission Jean Spratlin has announced that she is stepping down from the role after over fifty years of service. Her resignation will be effective on June 30.

“We are really indebted to her for her experience and her knowledge. She helped me out tremendously as a new commissioner,” Commissioner Dexter Fisher said. “She’s going to be missed.”

Fiscal year 2026 budget

The fiscal year 2026 Athens-Clarke County budget started off as a fairly conservative document. It provided for a 4% increase in employee pay while holding healthcare costs steady. Beyond that, it included very few new positions or initiatives, which allowed Mayor Kelly Girtz to keep property tax rates flat in his original budget draft.

After Girtz handed the budgetary reins to the commission, ACC financial staff were informed of an additional $1.5 million in projected tax revenue. This gave the commission a bit more room to work with, which Commissioners Mike Hamby and Carol Myers used to the fullest while creating their budget proposals. These commissioners even found millions more in the budget to better fund the requests of various partner agencies, including the ACC Library, the Northeast Georgia Food Bank, the District Attorney’s office, the Public Defender’s office, the Superior Court and other agencies.

Most prominently, Hamby increased the budgets of the ACC Sheriff’s Office and ACC Corrections Department by $615,000 and $727,717, respectively, to equalize their pay with that of police officers, while Myers offered a similar amount. Both commissioners fully funded the ACCPD’s Real Time Crisis Center with $339,329 and also bolstered the county’s affordable housing fund with an additional $1 million.

Both commissioners kept property tax rates roughly the same, with Myers keeping them flat and Hamby lowering them slightly, by 0.2 mils.

Raiding SPLOST and TSPLOST funds

All in all, the two budget proposals under consideration this year were remarkably similar, albeit for one significant difference. 

Hamby’s proposal paid for the new expenses – which went well beyond the extra $1.5 million in additional revenue – by redirecting interest that had accumulated in various SPLOST and TSPLOST funds to replace expenses that would otherwise have come from the general fund.

After realizing that such financial wizardry was possible, Myers re-wrote her budget draft to make use of this new trick, although she didn’t take as much from these funds as did Hamby. Specifically, Myers took funding only from the nearly complete SPLOST 2011 program and also a bit from SPLOST 2020 to expedite repairs on the county’s aging courthouse. 

Hamby took the same amount from SPLOST as Myers. In addition, he took $2.9 million from TSPLOST 2023 and $1.1 million from TSPLOST 2018, programs which are far from complete.

Lauren Blais, the chair of the TSPLOST 2023 advisory committee, wrote commissioners an open letter before the vote, saying that taking money from TSPLOST was “short-sighted,” fiscally unsustainable and could erode public confidence in SPLOST generally.

“We need every penny of these local SPLOST dollars, as they have become our primary source of funds for public infrastructure. The interest earned fills in the gap when construction costs escalate, allowing us to hold true to our promise to build what we told voters we would build,” Blais wrote. “We still have many projects outstanding that should be funded, but lie waiting for their construction dollars.”

Earmarking funds for traffic calming

On Tuesday – the day of the vote – Hamby released a slightly revised budget proposal which changed very little in terms of revenue or expenses. Instead, his new proposal redirected some TSPLOST 2023 funds (and even some general tax dollars) to the districts of specific commissioners who had either already announced their support for his budget or whose votes might be critical to passing it.

For example, Hamby allocated $1 million for traffic calming to be split among several neighborhoods, including Stonehenge (which is in Commissioner Stephanie Johnson’s district), Saxon Woods (which is Commissioner Ovita Thornton’s district), Homewood Hills (which is in Fisher’s district) and Kingswood (which is in Commissioner John Culpepper’s district).

Hamby also mentioned a specific street to receive funding – Fairview Street – which happens to be the home of Commissioner Tiffany Taylor. 

No commissioner who had announced support for Myers’ budget received any last minute funding for their districts.

For years, commissioners have complained that the process through which neighborhoods receive funding for traffic calming and road repaving was capricious and mostly at the whim of ACC staff. Former ACC Manager Blaine Williams responded to these complaints and worked with commissioners to establish a process that was based on need. The new process, which Hamby bypassed, was an attempt to be more equitable across the board for rich neighborhoods and poor ones alike.

The vote

Commissioners voted 7-3 in favor of Hamby’s budget, with only Commissioners Patrick Davenport and Melissa Link voting along with Myers in support of her budget. 

In her comments before the vote, Link had some harsh words for her colleagues.

“I am extremely disturbed by the idea of robbing the coffers of TSPLOST to pay for what seem to be political favors. We have processes that we’ve voted on to determine when and how these projects are executed,” Link said. “It’s a dangerous precedent and a broken promise to the community.”

Fisher objected to this characterization, saying that the redirection of funds was important for equity in the community.

“For the SPLOST areas that we’re trying to get that funding to, both of those are African-American communities which have always in the past been left off SPLOST projects,” Fisher said. “When we try to make those communities whole, we get criticized for it…I think it’s a great thing to do and I’m not going to apologize for it.”

Fisher was referring to Stonehenge and inner east Athens, which are neighborhoods with mostly Black residents. However, both of these areas were specifically mentioned in TSPLOST 2023 and will receive millions of dollars in that program. Inner east Athens, where Fairview Street is located, is scheduled to receive $38,000 for better lighting, $144,000 for traffic calming, $244,000 for pavement maintenance, $361,000 for transit improvements, $3.9 million to continue and connect the Oconee River Greenway trail and $991,000 for pedestrian improvements in TSPLOST 2023 (projects 7-13). Stonehenge was also specifically named in TSPLOST 2023. This neighborhood will receive $4.7 million for pedestrian improvements (project 17) before TSPLOST 2023 is complete.

What Fisher didn’t mention is that part of the $1 million earmarked for traffic calming in Hamby’s budget will go towards Homewood Hills and Kingswood, which have mostly white residents. These areas were not listed in TSPLOST 2023 to receive funding, but funding will now be diverted to them anyway.

Hamby also objected to Link’s comments, especially to the idea that he was “robbing” TSPLOST.

“We’re just reallocating. It’s going from unallocated interest to one of the eligible projects on those lists,” Hamby said. “All of the unallocated interest is still within those SPLOST programs. There is no legal mechanism that allows us to take SPLOST or TSPLOST [dollars] out of that program and into the general fund.”

Hamby suggested that future interest earned on SPLOST and TSPLOST dollars might be enough to help support projects that are underfunded. He also floated the idea that TSPLOST 2026 could be used to pay for TSPLOST 2023 projects that have shortfalls.

Athens-Clarke County’s new fiscal year starts on July 1.

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