County, City Talk $$ At Joint Meeting

Financial negotiations highlight talks between Toccoa City and Stephens County Commissioners.

The two boards met Tuesday for a joint meeting at Toccoa City Hall.

First on the list of discussions was the inmate housing agreement between Toccoa and Stephens County.

Earlier this month, Stephens County Commissioner Debbie Whitlock questioned why the city of Toccoa was not paying a daily fee to house city inmates at the county jail.

The county billed the city $8,500 for housing inmates last fiscal year.

However, the city noted it sends the county money through a 10 percent add-on to fines.

Toccoa City Commissioner Jeanette Jamieson said that the city is sending that money even though it does not have to because the two sides do not have a signed agreement in place.

“We are sending it without an agreement,” said Jamieson. “We are paying and based on a bill for $8,500, we paid almost 2 1/2 times in that $19,000 (worth of fine add-ons).”

However, Whitlock said many other counties charge a daily fee regardless of the fine add-on.

“Most are paying like $35 to $45 a day,” said Whitlock. “They also pay for any medical or transportation of those inmates that are city inmates to court or wherever, as well as a 10 percent fee on fines.”

Officials said Toccoa is already paying the medical and transportation costs for its inmates.

Mayor Gail Fry said the city and county need to sit down and work out more specific numbers on what it costs to house city inmates and come up with an agreement that is fair to both sides.

“We certainly do not want the county to lose money from anything the city is doing and place a burden on the county,” said Fry. “We do not want to do that.”

The two sides also discussed the possibility of the city helping the county with providing funding to the library.

County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said that the county continues to face budget hardships and if the tax digest does not improve or budget cuts are not made, the county could face another millage rate increase in about two years.

“We can skate by next fiscal year, but that next fiscal year, we are probably going to be needing $200,000 to $300,000 to not raise the millage rate and that is the library, or the senior center, or (something else),” said Ayers.

Commissioner Whitlock said the county does not want to have to cut services like the library because of the county’s financial situation.

“We do not want to do that,” said Whitlock. “What I am saying it is ‘Toccoa-Stephens County Library’ and we need some help.”

Toccoa Vice-Mayor Terry Carter said the city has tried to help the county in various ways regarding its budget situation.

“I just think it is worth noting that in SPLOST VI negotiations we walked away (from money) because of that same argument,” said Carter. “We understood you had state mandates you needed to fund, everything is going up, so we walked away from 5 percent of what we had received on SPLOST V. That is $1.1 million the city gave up on to help keep those services in place.”

City commissioners said they would take the county’s request for help with funding the library under consideration.

The two boards did bring up the topic of consolidation.

Citing a 2006 study done on the idea of consolidating the city and county, Commission Chair Dean Scarborough notes that study says cost savings would not be a main benefit.

Both boards agreed that the issue should only be brought forward again if there is a groundswell of public support.