BOC Discusses Senior Center Expansion

The is set to vote at its legislative meeting on Tuesday to accept a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant that would be used to fund the expansion of the .

Douglas County was one of 70 grant recipients state-wide, and said all cities and counties not currently receiving CDBG allocations were eligible to apply for the grants. Once construction on the project begins, it is expected to be completed in 12 months.

Other items on Tuesday’s agenda include hiring a new assistant public defender to replace one who recently left the local office, authorizing the county to apply for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for funds that will be used to purchase three ambulances, and voting to accept $54,351 from the Commissary Account for the purchase of medical tracking software for prisoner care, subject to legal review.

Also at the board’s work session on Thursday, there was a presentation from Phil Sutton with Sutton Consulting LLC regarding revising the allocation for the Local Option Sales Tax. Sutton said allocations must be reevaluated every 10 years following the census. Sutton said this year’s census showed Villa Rica having “tremendous” growth.

“Douglasville has also grown, but not at that rate,” Sutton said. “That’s the reason after every census the state asks you to go through this exercise to rebalance.”

This year, local governments have the option of arbitration should they fail to come to an agreement. In the past, if an agreement wasn’t reached, the governments would lose LOST proceeds. Now, at the time of the release of a letter to the cities regarding LOST proceeds, the governments have 60 days to come to an agreement and then another 60 days to mediate the agreement. Should they not be able to reach a mediated agreement, they have 30 days to decide if they will ask a superior court judge to arbitrate.

“We’ve never had that option before,” Sutton said. “In the past, it’s always been a dance between are we going to let the whole sales tax drop or are we going to come up with some forced agreement?”

In Douglas County, 93 percent of its LOST revenues are distributed county-wide while only 6.9 percent are dedicated just to unincorporated areas.

“That’s very small,” Sutton said. “That tells you this is a very robust service county. Not every county will have those kinds of numbers.”

The Board of Commissioners’ legislative meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. in .