Blue Ridge, Ga – Immediately after the scheduled Fannin County Board of Commissioners meeting on October 28th, the board held the first of two public budget workshops.
In a previous BOC meeting, Post 1 Commissioner Earl Johnson made a motion, which was passed, for two workshops and a public hearing to be held to go over the budget.

Johnson made it clear that the workshops were intended to be a time for any of the department heads that were going to be asking for a budget increase for 2015 to come before the board and the citizens in attendance at the workshop to explain their need for a budget increase.

Although there were several budget increases that were asked for from various department heads, when the actual workshop started there were no department heads in attendance that were prepared to go over their needs for budget increases.

When citizen Joe Webb asked the board why none of the department heads that were needing budget increases were in attendance to address the board and the community, Chair Bill Simonds responded by saying that he had spoke with the department heads to get their budget numbers himself, but he did not know why they were not in attendance at the workshop to present their reasoning.

“They knew about the meeting…I told I don’t know how many of them,”

said Simonds.

Many citizens, and even Post 1 Commissioner Earl Johnson, were confused as to why the department heads did not appear at the meeting and many began to question if the department heads were really even told that they were to attend the workshop.

Citizen Jan Eaton spoke to say that she felt that there was poor communication between the Simonds and the department heads concerning the department heads attending the meeting.

“There was a motion that was voted on and approved. Now, I’m having a real issue sitting back here when one commissioner made that motion and it was approved and voted on. Somewhere somebody dropped the ball. We as the taxpayers came thinking that that motion was approved and that this was what was going to happen. I’m not satisfied with this,”

said Eaton.

It was very evident that many other citizens’ felt the same way that Eaton had expressed she felt.

Early in the meeting, Sheriff Dane Kirby addressed the board and stated that, even though he wasn’t prepared to speak, he would gladly go over his budget to the best of his ability and explain his reasoning for a budget increase, which was needed to cover the greater need for dollars to purchase fuel for the department vehicles.

Although the department heads from the library and art center spoke on their budgets during the scheduled board meeting before the workshop, Kirby was the only department head to speak during the workshop itself.

The workshop ended with the announcement that the budget would be approved at the first meeting in December.

Watch the full workshop in the video below: