Lowndes County supervisors insist they are not holding $200,000 from the city parks system.
They just want to know what they are paying for first.
At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Columbus Public Information Officer Joe Dillon confronted supervisors about if the city should budget the $200,000 the county previously agreed to provide it for parks and recreation each year for three years.
When the county and city dissolved the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority on Oct. 1, 2017, the county initially agreed to provide the city those funds as part of the terms of the split, as it was determined that was roughly the amount Columbus residents paid in county taxes for recreation. Supervisors even backed up the agreement with an unanimous resolution in December to provide recreation funds for municipalities in the county — including Columbus, Caledonia, Artesia and Crawford — for at least 2018, 19 and 20.
Columbus hasn’t yet received those funds for Fiscal Year 2018, which ends Sept. 30, and the city has called a special meeting of the council on Aug. 6 to review the proposed FY2019 budget.
Board of Supervisors President Harry Sanders, responding to Dillon’s question on Tuesday, said the resolution specifies the money must be used for parks and recreation capital improvements, adding the county plans only to provide the city the $200,000 as reimbursement.
“No, we don’t plan on doing that. I haven’t seen, in this budget year, any capital improvements done,” Sanders said. “It’s a reimbursement.
“They’ve gotta spend money before we pay the money,” he told The Dispatch after the meeting. “As soon as they do that, we will give it to them. … What we are trying to keep from happening is (the city) gets the money and spends it however they want.”
Sanders’ position, however, seems to run counter to the language of the resolution supervisors passed in December, which makes no mention of capital improvements or reimbursement.
In fact, a copy of the resolution the county provided to The Dispatch reads: “whereas the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors desire (sic) to provide funding to assist with the operation of the parks and recreation.”
Further, the resolution said the money would be to assist the municipalities in “providing and maintaining parks and recreation programs.”
It goes on to allocate up to $300,000 toward that end, including $200,000 for Columbus, $50,000 for the Field of Dreams special-needs facility at Propst Park, and another $50,000 to be distributed among Caledonia, Artesia and Crawford.
Mayor Robert Smith, speaking with The Dispatch Tuesday, said he was aware — and agreed with — the stipulation the money was for capital improvements. The city has plans for a $1.6 million upgrade to Propst Park, for which it has openly sought funding sources.
However, he said he didn’t realize the county meant for those funds to be reimbursements. While Smith is not opposed to operating that way, he wants the county’s resolution to reflect that stipulation on the record.
“There needs to be a clearer understanding and a document in black and white that can be referred to so all parties will understand,” he said. “I don’t see why it has to be that way, but if there is in a document in writing, we will abide by that.”
Smith added the city never actually expected to receive the funds from the county, even taking it out of its 2018 budget.
Still, Sanders said the county is not expecting anything from Columbus it isn’t expecting from other entities included in the resolution.
Caledonia, for example, is planning work at its soccer fields that supervisors plan to reimburse.
“They have come up with an idea. But they have not gotten the money from us,” Sanders said. “Once they send us a contract or issue bonds or whatever, we will pay them. The same goes for Columbus.”
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