Jones County Commissioners had a busy week, beginning with a work session before their November meeting and more meetings that followed.
Board Chairman Chris Weidner called the Nov. 5 work session to order as voting in the presidential election was drawing to a close.
The topic of the work session was water, and the meeting covered issues of capacity, distribution and available funding.
Jones County Water Superintendent Brandon Stark and consulting engineer Tim Ingram presented current situations about roads in the county, such as one home having county water without it being available to others.
Stark noted constant repair issues on Lite-N-Tie Road, and Ingram spoke of the need for a booster pump at Station 8.
Another issue was supplying water to the City of Gray and the need for a second water connection to avoid interruption of service to city water customers.
The work session was an overview for the commissioners to update them on the issues. At its conclusion, Stark, Ingram and County Administrator Jason Rizner were tasked with bringing back suggestions and plans for next steps.
6 p.m. meeting
After a short break, Weidner brought the board meeting to order. Ingram led the opening prayer and pledge.
Planning and Zoning items were first on the agenda. A conditional use was approved to allow a hunting club at 865 Griswoldville Road. A second conditional use to allow two single-wide mobile homes on property located on Hillsboro Lake Road was also approved.
The first item of New Business was a beer and wine license for Gary’s Food Mart on Highway 49. Following verification of the background check by the Jones County Sheriff’s Office, the license was approved.
Ingram presented the commissioners with a logo to be placed on the county’s new water tank. Commissioner Sam Kitchens made the motion to approve logo, and the vote in agreement was unanimous.
Assessors’ update
Jones County Chief Appraiser Tony George presented board members with a requested update from the tax assessors department. He said he took full responsibility for the number of overrides for properties on the tax digest, and most of the overrides had been removed.
He said the issue had been fixed. George reported that the overrides were down to 2.9 percent, which is below the five percent threshold.
The percentage for residential overrides on a previous report was 35 percent.
The appraiser said the staff is being trained on Wingap, the software used by tax assessors. He said going forward ratio studies would be done on all neighborhoods.
Commissioner Daylon Martin asked if the department was able to do the studies with the current staff, and George said they would have to.
He said the department currently has three appraisers with one in training.
George said before he began his employment with Jones County, he met with the previous Chief Appraiser, Linda Sibley. That was eight years ago.
“I asked if everything was up to date; she said yes,” he recalled.
George said he found out later that was not the case, and the system needed to be updated. He said the system needed to be more consistent for new construction.
“We needed to adjust the process, which was labor intensive,” he said. The appraiser said, during the ratio study, he found neighborhoods were using different prices for square foot. He said it is now 60 and needs to be 100 next year.
George said commercial schedules need to be reviewed to be sure they are consistent.
Martin asked George what he expected from the next day’s arbitration. The appraiser said he planned to put his best foot forward, but the internal ratios look good.
Commissioners respond
Kitchens told George what he said in his update contradicted everything the members of the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts had told them.
“Why are you talking about meeting with a retiring appraiser eight years ago? All these things should have been looked at two years ago after the first problem with the study and we’re still not there,” he said.
Kitchens said the commissioners have constantly been told they have no control of the tax assessors.
“To say the department is dysfunctional is an understatement. We’ve got a problem, but ‘we’ can’t fix it,” Kitchens stated. “What is the plan to fix it?”
Commissioner Wendy Vaughn noted that George has been in the position for eight years and questioned his excuse for the problem as the retired appraiser.
George said that was not an excuse.
Vaughn asked why he had not fixed the problems in eight years.
The appraiser said he is currently training his staff in aspects of the software system that had not been used but would be used going forward.
Commissioner John Wood asked George the plan for addressing the situation in his office for the last two weeks.
George said he was still working with the staff; they were just in separate buildings.
Wood asked if the public was being served, and he said yes.
“We continue to move forward with our work,” he said.
Kitchens asked George if he was speaking for the Board of Assessors since none of them attended the meeting as requested.
The appraiser said the board members could not make the meeting because of the late timing of the request.
Kitchens told George there was no way he and the members of the Board of Assessors could not see the problem among the personnel in the department that resulted with one employee being arrested.
“It elevated to an emergency situation and the county had to move people to a different building,” he said.
The commissioner added that anything that was done for the safety of the employees had been done by the commissioners, although it was the responsibility of George and the Board of Assessors.
Commissioner Wendy Vaughn told George all the changes he had spoken about doing was because of something his department had been caught not doing.
George said he believed the members of the board were leaning on human resources to take care of the problems.
“They didn’t think they had control,” he said.
County Attorney Ashley Brodie told George that the Board of Assessors has sole control of the assessors’ office.
“If they don’t know, they need be told,” he said.
Commissioners John Wood asked, if the Board of Assessors did not know they had control, why did they have a three-hour meeting Sept. 6, when they illegally took evidence in a closed meeting from those employees?
Back to agenda
Stark requested and was granted permission to sell surplus equipment.
Weidner spoke to the commissioners about the need for additional cameras in the customer service offices of the county.
“We need to look at all of them,” he said.
Kitchens asked for a safety audit of the customer service areas.
Vaughn made a motion to have a safety study to find where cameras are needed. The motion was approved unanimously.
The only old business was the request by Environmental Specialist Maggie Graham from the Jones County Health Department to increase fees for services. She said the fees had not been increased since 2010.
After a lengthy discussion about fee comparisons with other counties, Martin said he did not agree with the increases. Kitchens also rejected the fee schedule submitted. Instead, he made a motion to increase the existing fees by 10 percent across the board for the services. The vote to approve was unanimous.
Comments
Laurinda Mason with Public Works said the department was catching up from hurricane clean up and were caught up on work orders.
Sheriff Butch Reece requested overgrown trees on Sage Street and abandoned properties be taken down for safety reasons.
Martin said he felt the county was doing exciting work. He also stated his son had recently graduated from boot camp, and he was a proud father. He received congratulations from other commissioners.
Closed session
The meeting was adjourned to enter into closed session to discuss personnel and litigation.
When the meeting reconvened Kitchens made the motion that every employee who is on Jones County’s payroll, with the exception of the JCSO, is subject to the rules in the Jones County Employee Handbook. The motion was approved unanimously.
