County Mayor Shelvy Linville began the meeting by stating that unless the person or subject was on the agenda, the meeting was not the place for emotional outbursts of opinion, and requested that members of the audience not speak unless recognized by the chairman.
"I'm asking you to conduct yourselves in an orderly manner or you will be asked to leave," said Linville.
The commissioners addressed the hotel/motel tax, with commissioner Ralph Doss noting that the resolution passed in July had mis-stated the amount the hotel/motel would share (for collecting the five percent tax and filing the paperwork with the state).
County Mayor Shelvy Linville agreed, apologizing for mis-statements in both the Resolution and the explanation of it.
Instead of the county receiving three-cents, and the hotel/motel the other two cents, or a 60-40 percent share, the hotel/motel share is just two percent of the tax collected, on the same model as the way as the state and local tax (which totals 9.25 percent) is shared by merchants when collecting the tax for the state and local governments.
Linville continued, noting that the commissioners should vote to pass or reject the re-stated Resolution twice (on first and second readings) before it is sent to the state legislature for consideration.
The vote was side-stepped on a motion by Larry Tucker to postpone consideration of the tax until January, 2009, and a vote on this motion tied 10-10. The county mayor then broke the tie, agreeing to the postponement in order for proponents of the tax to fully clarify the details of the measure.
School Director Darrell Law addressed the commissioners, asking that they fund the school board's proposal to put a new roof on Fairlane School.
"We opened the bids at the August 14 meeting, and Alert Roofing, the same contractor that put new metal roofs on RBS School and Central School, had the low bid of $513,590, much lower than the other two bids received."
The schools director told commissioners that electrical and heating and cooling systems at RBS School would also have to be addressed before cold weather, and a major electrical system upgrade was necessary at Central Elementary School in Lafayette.
The county mayor was asked to look into interest rates and the availability and terms of bonds to fund the project before the first September meeting.
OF MOST INTEREST to the county employees attending the commission meeting was final approval of the county's 2008-09 budget, which included no pay raises for employees this year.
Mayor Linville explained that while the county's fund balance was $1,965,940 at the end of June, 2008, nearly a million dollars of that amount would go into the general fund to allow the county not to have a tax increase this year.
"We ought to look at the fund balance as a 'savings account'," said Linville. "We've got a 2008-09 budget that spends about $8-million with estimated revenues of just over $7-million, requiring us to spend $9,027,000 of our fund balance, which will leave the county with a $1,045,000 estimated fund balance in June, 2009."
Linville told county employees he wished there was the money to give a pay increase this year, but that "this was not the year."
Noting that the county was also still waiting for FEMA reimbursement of nearly $1-million in tornado clean-up costs, Linville said it would require a 30-cent increase in the property tax to balance the proposed 2008-09 budget without using fund balance money.
Most of the commissioners apparently agreed, and passed the budget proposal on second and final reading with commissioners Looper, Gammons and Malo voting against.
IN WHAT HAD BEEN THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL issue brought before the commissioners at their August 4 meeting, the subject of a more uniform pay scale for county employees, in particular the clerks or staff of the various courthouse, justice center and county-wide elected office holders was addressed by Mayor Linville.
The mayor said he had researched the pay scales of county officials and their office employees in the surrounding counties, and that the pattern in Macon County was similar to other small counties, with the schools director, the general session judge and the county mayor-executive receiving the highest salaries.
"I know my office staff was singled out at the meeting two weeks ago, but with supervision and responsibility for all of the county departments, the staff's responsibilities are greater,' said Linville.
The mayor said the issue needed more study by the county commission, and the commissioners, on a motion by Crowder, seconded by Gammons agreed "to form a committee to research the pay scale for county employees" to get a better system in place.
Linville noted that of all the small counties in our region, only Overton County had a system in place which requires any "new hires" to go before a salary committee to evaluate the situation if the employee was to be hired at a salary higher than the county's base starting pay for that position.
The mayor apologized to citizens who had come with the intention of further discussing the intention of Cobb-Vantress, Inc. to locate a large number of chicken houses in the county, saying their was not sufficient time to put them on that evening's agenda, but that they would be put on the September 8 agenda for the county commission meeting (delayed one week due to the September 1 Labor Day holiday.
As a motion to adjourn was made, seconded, and voted upon, former County Mayor Glen Donoho stood up from his front row seat and attempted to confront Mayor Linville as he had at the August 4 meeting concerning the pay scale for the mayor's chief administrative assistant Tammy Russell, verses what had been paid his (Donoho's) daughter when she held the same position in her father's office.
However, commission parliamentarian Tony Boles ended the meeting by ruling that a motion to adjourn had been made and voted upon, thus ending the evening's meeting.
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