As a resident and property owner of the new City of Peachtree Corners, I was shocked to see a budget that was three times larger than initially proposed. The latest proposal is $2.7 million, when thought to be originally $760,917.
The city leaders touted there would only be three services: land planning and zoning, code enforcement and trash collection.
These are the same leaders that are now saying we must include more services. The question is how and who will fund this new huge budget? And can you see more taxes - or "franchise fees" - coming our way to pay for this “City Hall Sprawl.” These new issues are important for all of us to follow.
As a fellow taxpayer, I feel your pain. The original vision of Peachtree Corners was to be a city with limited services, a "city lite." I believe this is not what the voters of the city signed onto and agreed upon. Otherwise, we will be right back where we started.
1) Benefit packages for the employees are excessive, exceeding that offered in the private sector, including obscene amounts for 401k matching funds. 2) With 77 resumés available for city manager, do we really need to provide $30k moving expenses? 3) Kill the Call Center. We will have a mayor, 6-city council members, and four FULL TIME city employees. There should be NO PROBLEM with them answering the phones during the business hours. Hard to imagine many cases where we would need off hour access to a call center. 4) General Operations. Holy cow! Office ($35k) and IT equipment ($100K), Professional Services ($75k+100k+70k +30k = $275K). That's a LOT of office equipment, and the equivalent of 3 FULL TIME Professional support staff. Really?? 5) Does a City Lite really need 4 employees (City Manager, City Clerk, Finance Manager and Community Development?) What are these folks going to do for 40 hours EVERY week. 7) As for the Finance Manager, there are also line items in this category for $50k for contractual services, and $30k for external audits, or almost $200K for financial services. Really?? Hopefully we see a more realistic budget proposal before the next meeting!
City Lite; HIGH COST - NO BENEFITS
I know a lot of no voters who would like to help too. I think that a lot of the yes voters whold change there mind and also help if they knew what is going on.