OPINION: Cruising down Hwy. 106 in a budget crunch

Saturday’s Atlanta paper included a story about cuts in state funding for water systems. Of course, that means the recently-proposed Harrison system in northern Madison County will be temporarily tanked as a result .

I drove by the spot off Hwy. 106 where two people were recently found dead in the woods and thought about the Georgia Bureau of Investigation losing crime lab positions due to a $4.2 million GBI budget cut. Pulling funds from the GBI is a desperate measure, especially considering how much that agency has on its plate across the state. Think of all the violent crimes they investigate. Think of the north Georgia government corruption cases we’ve seen in recent months. But in Georgia, when it comes to bare bones budgets, apparently we can do without identifying real bones.

Yes, the projected $1.6 billion revenue shortfall for the state means the folks in Atlanta have to put the Bic lighter to a lot of written promises.

Hard times, indeed.

But as I drove down Hwy. 106, I remembered, too, the months of inconvenience earlier this year on that same road as the state smoothed some hills and altered an intersection. That project cost $4 million. I understand that the state has to maintain a network of highways through Georgia. It’s like dental work. I understand that engineers deemed the changes necessary on Hwy. 106 and that they surely know more than me.

Nevertheless, the logic of that endeavor still escapes me. The project seemed like that crown job on a molar that you could do without. It just didn’t seem necessary and still doesn’t now that I can see results. There are sections of Hwy. 98 that are equally hilly. But this is north Georgia. We have hills. I never felt Hwy. 106 was overly dangerous, not any more than other roadways.

And I can’t help but think of the $4 million and how else it could have been used — like for the GBI. Or, if local, and not state, leadership could have controlled those purse strings. Had the state sought input from Madison County leaders and residents on where safety improvements are most needed around here, I feel pretty sure that the money would have gone to Colbert-Danielsville Road, a main artery to the county’s lone high school, where speed, curves, sharp slopes and increasing traffic flow make for a scary, and too often disastrous, mix.

That said, I recognize that the state does provide some local assistance for roads, but it’s not like those funds are generated in Tahiti. We fork a lot of our cash into that large, collective pool. And then it trickles back to us in the form of local assistance and grants.

Consider that the $4 million spent on Hwy. 106 is roughly what the county will generate for road improvements over the next six years. The BOC approved $3.95 million in sales tax funds for roads through 2012. The state dropped that money like it was nothing, while the county has to scrape and claw for every penny for road improvements. Think of how many miles of dirt roads could have been paved in Madison County with that Hwy. 106 money.

I think of that $4 million and remember how the state shorted the county schools by $4.5 million over the past six years, failing to meet its own funding formulas for education. As a result, Madison County has joined a class action suit with 50 other school systems who are trying to get the Georgia government to commit to its own standards of funding.

Without promised funding, many school systems have to raise property taxes. The state imposes certain requirements, but doesn’t provide the funding to back them up. If the local systems fail to meet those requirements, they face the risk of even more funding problems.

On top of that, school systems and counties are facing an even bigger crunch, as the governor has postponed payment of homeowners tax relief grants, an estimated $428 million item.

As Jim Higdon, executive director of the Georgia Municipal Association, correctly pointed out in an opinion piece in the AJC, “This means the state government will be raising local property taxes.”

While the state government can pass off budget headaches to boards of education, county commissioners and city councils, those local governing authorities have nowhere to turn, except property owners.

Many property owners won’t understand how the buck has been passed from Atlanta. They’ll only understand the hurt of the money leaving their wallets. They’ll look to the first faces they see, the local governing authorities.

But if people get too griped this year about taxes, maybe they should fill their tanks with that pricey gas and take a nice stroll down Hwy. 106.

At least they’ll get what they paid for.

Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison County Journal.