Commissioner Bebe Heiskell
photo by Gail Perry
Walker County Sole Commissioner Bebe Heiskell, at one of a series of town hall meetings on Saturday morning, said she is studying several options for settling a huge debt to Erlanger Health system.
The Erlanger bill was the topic that generated the most participation from the nearly dozen residents of Lookout Mountain, Ga., at the Lookout Mountain, Ga., City Hall.
Erlanger was hired to manage Hutcheson Medical Center in order to keep the Fort Oglethorpe hospital open.
The original $10 million that Erlanger wanted in repayment when the venture ultimately failed was reduced to $8.7 million when the nursing home associated with the hospital was sold. Federal Judge Harold Murphy has ruled the money that Walker County guaranteed must be paid. Ms. Heiskell told those in the room that she had received threats from mainly hospital employees who wanted Erlanger to take over for fear of the facility closing otherwise.
After her attempted negotiations with Erlanger offering $1.2 million and then $4 million were refused, the options that she is left with, she said, are to pay $8.7 million in increments, issue a bond, buy a mil or to take the matter to the Georgia Supreme Court. The residents participating in the meeting favored solving the problem any way except for raising property taxes and debated which option would be the cheapest. One comment was that it would cost money to take it to court, and “you don’t want to throw good money after bad.” The county has already spent $65,000 on appeals. Commissioner Heiskell, who is running for re-election as an Independent, said she believes it would be cheaper to pay it off in increments, but also that she thinks the county would have a good chance if it goes to court with a jury trial.
“You’d be a hero to resolve the Erlanger issue without raising the millage rate,” said Brian Joyce, former state legislator. “I’ll never be a hero,” replied Ms. Heiskell. “I wish I hadn’t signed that agreement.” Then she added, “If they’d done what they said, I’d pay them in a minute.”
Reappraisal of property was another topic of concern for those at the meeting. The commissioner said the county was under a consent order from the Georgia Department of Revenue to do the re-evaluations because the assessments were too low. Walker County would have been fined had they not been done. Questioned about why the appraisals seem to be haphazard for homes in the same area, Ms. Hesikell said that a formula was followed to assure the same standards were applied everywhere.
The roll-back of taxes for education because of budget issues was another concern. As it is now, three out of the 14 classes at Fairyland Elementary are over the class size limit, said Caroline Williams, the council member in charge of education in the town. She worries that if individuals appeal their appraisal increases and are successful at having them lowered, it would mean less money for the school. Fairyland Elementary is ranked seventh in the state, largely due to the PTO contributing $150,000 yearly for additional teachers. “At the end of the day, if you want to raise property values, you have to invest in the schools,” said Ms. Williams. The school is one of the main reasons people move to the city, she said.
People do not mind paying for taxes if they are getting something for it, said Ms. Williams. That was the complaint heard from another resident at the meeting, who said his mother’s house had been revalued at an increase of 38 percent. Increases like that are causing people to move to Dade County, which has lower property taxes, he said, and many houses in Walker County are up for sale for that reason. He said that Lookout Mountain, Ga., pays a large percentage of the total property tax collected by the county, but does not get it back with services. The city needs help with making improvements to city hall, repaving roads, repairing culverts and building parks. Those things are now being done with help from the community, not the county, he told Ms. Heiskell.
The county’s economic future has been improved; she began, because of the establishment of an industrial park. It consists of 500 acres that Walker County paid $4.5 million for as an investment in the future. The site had utilities and rail in place and is planned to be a place to locate new industries. As of now just one company is in operation at the site. Audia, a plastics manufacturer, has one building and is in the planning stages for a second. The county provided incentives for the company including giving them 25 acres and negotiating with the power company to provide electricity at four cents per kWh. It also built roads inside the park. The commissioner said that money from SPLOST can be pulled to replace money needed for other roads. Because of the new people the company has lured and the high wages they pay, she said more houses are now being constructed.
The county is in need of more, however, and future goals that Ms. Heiskell outlined include finding more prospects for the industrial park, the increase of building houses, the need for more commercial development, and to raise the median income of county residents who she said are now mostly lower to middle income. Higher incomes would encourage more business.
Finding a location to build a commercial district in the county is a challenge, she said. Now the majority of businesses are flocking to Battlefield Parkway in Catoosa County. A possible site is 11 miles along Highway 27, but it presently has no utilities and Ms. Heiskell said it would be too costly to put them in until there are definite prospects.
Walker County’s debt balance is now $22,115,000, down from the $33 million that originally came from a referendum in 2013 for a SPLOST bond. Capital leases for the purchase of items such as equipment for fire, police and sheriff’s departments are all budgeted items. An empty bank building that Ms. Heiskell purchased on behalf of the county to use for an expanded assessor’s office as well as to house the tax office and planning and zoning departments was bought for $800,000. A short term loan that will be paid back by the last day in December 2016 is $5 million for expanding the landfill. She said it would be worth selling if she could get $7 million for it, but as of now a sale is off the table. There is also a line of credit for $390,000. In total, the county’s debt is $32,555,000. Less the SPLOST funds, leaves the net balance of $10,440,000.
Unfunded liabilities are debts that do not have to be repaid such as pension plans and vacation time. This type of debt is reduced once it has been used. The commissioner said that that people on the city’s pension plan are encouraged to retire early and newer employees are on 401K plans, which save the county money. Monitoring the landfill that was closed in 2002 has resulted in actual losses of $275,000. Mountain Cove Farms, she said, has made $35,000 due to depreciation and because the county has not spent money on it this year. This property was purchased to increase tourism in the county, she said, and that would in turn bring in retail business.
Another issue facing the county said Ms. Heiskell is the large increase in the number in juvenile offenders and the cost of their legal representation and housing, which is doubling.