Just when I thought the Tommy Postell blow-up was going to be all I would be able to write about, I learn about how the City of Albany “forgot” about an account with nearly $905,000 sitting in it. Originally raised for street light improvements, this money was left sitting in an account due to a comedy of errors that sounds almost like something out of a sit com.
And here’s the funny thing.
This is from the exact same city commission meeting as Tommy Postell getting upset about the County raising their fees for the landfill. Now, I’m not sure exactly what restrictions there is on this money, but couldn’t this help offset costs on the landfill somewhat?
Also, even with a budget that’s really pretty impressive in size all in all, $905,000 is hardly chump change. Where was Postell’s indignation at this? Where was the righteous fury that his constituents deserved to know where their tax dollars were? Hm?
We have no choice but to either trust our elected officials with our money or to just move away. For some of us masochistic fools, we’d rather just get the government to do what they’re supposed to do and to do it right.
We’re probably asking for far to much it seems.
Okay, I’ll bite. Some things need to be clarified.
SPLOST II was collected from 1990 to 1994 (while I was still in law school!) $2.5 million was allocated to street lights. $1.594 million was spent. That leaves the $905k.
However, all of that $905k (and then some) has already been encumbered or allocated to specific street lighting projects by prior commissions. The money just hasn’t been spent. FYI, because the county housed the SPLOST II funds in accordance with state law, the county has actually been reaping the benefit of the interest earned on that money.
I have known about the leftover SPLOST II money for years, and was incredulous when I first learned about it as to how we could let it sit unused for so long. I believe it has been spent down somewhat during my tenure.
When I first learned about the money I investigated the matter. I found out that WG&L was tasked with spending down the SPLOST II money on selected lighting projects. WG&L provided various reasons that I was unable to refute for why the money was so slow to be spent and the work so slow to be completed.
Among the reasons for the delay, is the fact that some of the projects like the high mast lighting project at the Nottigham way overpass required waiting on matching funds or technical assistance from other sources such as the GA DOT. Another reason was that WG&L has other projects that take precedence, and has limited staffing resources to complete the work.
Due to interdependence on outside sources, it is not clear to me how much outsourcing would really speed up the work. I believe our former engineering director opined at that time that it would not help much.
Also, city staff’s research suggests that outsourcing the installation of the lights to private industry would be MUCH more expensive. Obviously, there are not a lot entities equipped to do some of the lighting projects that WG&L does in-house. Those that do this specialized work can charge a lot for it. It became clear that if we outsourced the work, the SPLOST II allocation would not be sufficient to complete anywhere near all the planned projects.
About the time I brought all this up in 2007, WG&L found a $500k invoice for totally different street light work that was never submitted to the city to be paid from the SPLOST II account. WG&L claimed accidental oversight. Needless to say, this did not make me happy. This invoice actually put the SPLOST II account $106k in the red when the encumbered/allocated funds were taken into account. If we honored the late invoice, it would have meant some projects would be unfunded.
WG&L has now offered to rescind that $500k invoice, and the city voted at the last work session to accept that offer. That should leave a positive balance of $394k in the SPLOST II fund even after accounting for encumbered/allocated funds.
I will now ask city staff to obtain from WG&L a detail status report on the progress of each of the SPLOST II projects and a revised assessment on outsourcing the work, and report back.
[Note: Comment edited by Jeff to show Commissioner Langstaff's last name for positive identification due to subject matter of comment. I sought and got his permission first.]
Commissioner Langstaff,
Thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that the street light improvement had already been done, but didn’t post that because I wasn’t 100% clear on that.
Of course, this then leads me to wonder how it doesn’t seem that hard to know about, since you report having known about it for some time and I seem to recall another Commissioner talking about a similar situation prior to his election (name withheld since I don’t want to put words in his mouth…this was YEARS ago), then how could it have been missed by everyone else as it seems to have been?
I completely understand the inability to outsource the light work, since most municipalities have a monopoly on that there has been little reason for private firms to take up that line of work. Still, I appreciate you looking and asking as you did. I honestly don’t mind the government doing something, so long as they are the most cost effective means such as this case.
Thanks for taking the time and sharing some more details than that which I’ve been able to get so far. It’s always good when City Commissioners let us know what is going on when so much of our media doesn’t seem either willing or able to provide tose details.
You wrote: “how could it have been missed by everyone else as it seems to have been?”
I don’t think everyone else missed it. They may have just forgotten about it. I think the minutes from past years would reveal that we have discussed this before in several work sessions. The amount of money left over is probably a new figure because some money has probably been spent since we last addressed the issue. That may have caused confusion for some.
City staff is generally very good about reporting SPLOST project progress to us on a routine basis.
It certainly looks that way, but I’ll take your word for it. I stand corrected then
edit to add: Must have been how a local paper presented it then