A few proposals from Ward 6 Councilman Jason Spears on Thursday to reallocate unused salaries and change the way the city budgets road money turned an already chippy work session into a direct confrontation between Spears and Mayor Stephen Jones.
As their argument progressed, Spears felt compelled to assure the public he has no plans to run for mayor and Jones accused Spears of being closed-minded. The actual discussion items were kicked to today for further consideration.
“I’m not running for mayor. I don’t want to be mayor of Columbus,” Spears said during the council work session at City Hall, noting he had received text messages alleging that is his ambition. “… Quote me on that because it seems to be a roadblock for some. I’m just trying to do the best job from my position.”
“It ain’t about running for mayor or anything like that,” Jones fired back. “When you get something stuck in your head, you want it done your way, so you don’t communicate with anybody else on how it needs to be done.”
“Well, you know what, let’s try it my way just once, and if I’m wrong then you don’t ever have to try it again,” Spears responded, before Jones interrupted with “Why don’t you let me do my job?”
At that point, Ward 4 Councilwoman Lavonne Harris broke up the argument, suggesting the council move on with the work session agenda and resume the budgeting discussion when council meets in regular session today at the Municipal Complex.
What’s Spears’ plan?
Spears, a financial planner by trade who serves as the council’s finance chair, had suggested overhauling the way it budgets money it receives from Lowndes County’s road tax levy each year, as well as how it divides internet use tax collections.
His plan would create a budgeted fund of roughly $1.4 million next fiscal year that would be divided evenly among the mayor and six council members, giving each about $200,000 for projects in their respective jurisdictions.
It would not be a unilateral discretionary spending account, Spears told The Dispatch on Monday, as all projects would be subject to majority approval of the council.
As it stands, the city receives a little more than $700,000 annually from the county’s road tax levy, which simply goes into the general fund with no direct tracking on how those specific funds are spent, Spears said.
The city receives about $5.2 million in internet use tax funds to use on street and drainage projects each year, though this year the city spent some of those funds on roof work at the Municipal Complex. Spears wants to siphon $700,000 from those collections to fund about half of his proposed budgeting initiative.
“Say, I know that I have half of an eighth of a mile … that’s not going to be in a whole paving thing, but if I did this it would make a significant improvement to the road,” Spears said. “… You could go to small contractors for that work, if (the) public works (department) couldn’t really do it, and get quotes.”
Another “good example” from his own ward, he said, is flooding at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle near the area where ambulances enter and exit. Those funds could be used to excavate and rebuild nearby ditches so water will stop going across the roadway.
“What’s gotten us to where we are today has worked to a large degree,” Spears said. “To get us where we’re trying to go, we’re going to have to innovate. With innovation comes transparency.”
The new budgeting plan, in Spears’ view, would replace the city’s special projects fund, which he called a catch-all miscellaneous fund, as soon as next fiscal year.
Before getting rid of it, however, he suggested beefing up the size of the fund to maximize it for this fiscal year. Specifically, he proposed adding more than $100,000 in unused salaries for a public information officer and city planner to the current special projects fund to help cover unbudgeted needs across city departments this fiscal year. Though both positions were added to this year’s budget, the city has not hired a PIO and the planner won’t start until September.
Jammie Garrett previously told The Dispatch the special projects fund still has a roughly $200,000 balance without that infusion of new money.
‘Consternation’
Jones, during the work session, did not seem on board with Spears’ proposals.
For one, he wants the internet use tax funds pooled for a major paving project that would look at city priorities holistically, rather than divide the money evenly among the wards.
Spears called Jones’ reluctance to his proposals “baffling.”
“I’d be glad to sit down and draw it out – arrows and squares and circles, X’s and O’s if I need to,” Spears said during the work session, which set the stage for their argument that followed.
On Monday, Spears told The Dispatch suggesting something different and new might be what’s causing the mayor, and maybe others on the council, “consternation.”
“I don’t know if I didn’t explain it clearly. I don’t know if someone thought I should clear it all by them first. I don’t know,” Spears said. “… I’m very confident in my abilities, and I’m very comfortable in taking the information, distilling it down to the core facts and making decisions with it. And it’s just like anything that you innovate, sometimes it’s going to work out exactly like you thought. Sometimes you’re going to realize you missed a step and need to change a little bit. In the end, it’s not going to blow up in our face.”
Jones would not discuss the proposals further when speaking briefly to The Dispatch on Monday.
“Guess, y’all will see at the council meeting (today),” he said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 28 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
