At their first scheduled meeting Monday afternoon, research subcommittee members brainstormed research strategies for investigating alternative forms of commission structures and touched on cost differences between various forms of county government.
Members of the research subcommittee agreed that open lines of communication with the structure subcommittee (which will use information gathered by the research committee to create the new government structure) is crucial to the success of the process.
“We need to get with them and get some guidance as to what it is they want us to look at,” said research subcommittee chair John Aldridge. “We don’t want to get information [the structure subcommittee] isn’t going to want.”
Members of the research committee did attend the structure committee meeting later that Monday.
Members discussed soliciting information from counties with similar demographics as Pickens County via the Internet, through one-on-one meetings and by telephone interviews with officials from those counties.
Phil Anderson also said he has plans of meeting with Steve Gooch, a previous sole-commissioner in Lumpkin County who made the transition to a multi-person commission. Anderson gave an open invitation to any Citizen Advisory Committee member to attend that conference.
The date of the meeting has yet to be announced.
Members of the research subcommittee also touched on possible increased salary and facilities costs from moving to a multi-person commission (which may or may not include a county administrator or manager) could be a sticking point with some voters. The research committee has plans to research information about these costs from other Georgia counties.
Citizen Advisory Committee Chair Phil Anderson (previous county manager for Dawson County) estimated that salary costs would only increase by about $100,000 if Pickens moves to a multi-person commission that utilizes a county administrator or county manager.
Typically multi-person commissions are made-up of several part-time commissioners that split the salary of a full-time commissioner, which means the only net-change in salary costs would come from the addition of a county administrator or manager, Anderson said.
Anderson added that during his employment as a county administrator in Dawson County each of five part-time commissioners made $20,000 per year, with Anderson’s salary being $80,000.
However, subcommittee members will also be looking into the cost of support staff and facilities that may be needed by additional county administrators, managers and commissioners.
The research subcommittee scheduled their next meeting for Wednesday, May 27 at 1 p.m.. They meet at Amicalola EMC.
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