The Macon-Bibb Commission asked legislators Tuesday to make changes to its charter.
Part of that is reducing the size of cuts they must make in their new consolidated budget. Right now the charter says the budget must be cut 20 percent over 4 years.
But some commissioners want to change that to 10 percent. That means they'd have to cut 15 to 16 million dollars instead of 30 million.
Commissioner Mallory Jones supports the change. He says to grow, the county must maintain its current services like public safety. He likes the different suggestions offered on how to give the commission budget flexibility.
"I like the 10 percent, I don't think 20 percent is doable. And I think we should have flexibility, in other words we don't have to do two and a half percent each year, we can maybe have less one year and more another year," said Jones.
State Representative Nikki Randall said she didn't support the 20 percent from the beginning and would be open to adjusting it.
"I knew that this whole consolidation process would have so many growing pains as is. And forcing them to reduce a budget, even five percent every year, I knew would be dreadfully painful," she said.
State Representative Allen Peake (R) said legislators are open to discussing changes. To start, he said they need to look at which budget year the cuts will begin.
"The intent was that we start from the last full fiscal year of the two combined governments, and start that as the base year, 20 percent reduction from that. The charter actually says it starts from the first full year after consolidation, so we may need to make a change of that," he said.
The commission is also asking legislators to look at the year the budget cuts will be based on.
Right now the cuts would be based on this year, fiscal year 2015, the first year of consolidated government.
Mayor Robert Reichert said commission has already cut 7 million dollars out of the budget and aren't getting credit for that.
Reichert said if the legislature doesn't make those changes to the charter, it could hurt county departments.
"Public safety, which everybody says they're for, that constitutes 60 percent of our total budget, is in public safety. And nobody wants to cut that, how in the world can you make up that difference and everything that's left. So sanitation, road repair, all those kinds of services, recreation, building services, inspections and fees, we can't leave public safety alone and take these cuts out of the other. But everybody says don't cut public safety. That puts us in the horns of a dilemma, " said Reichert.
He said there is a rule in the charter allowing them to adjust the budget if it hurts public safety. And said he might have to use that if legislators don't approve the reduction.
