What happens if Peachtree City Council fails to pass a budget?

For the first time in its history, it looks like Peachtree City’s City Council is going to fail to pass a budget before the new fiscal year on October 1. How did this happen? Who is at fault? Is it even reasonable? And what happens next? The Citizen interviewed key people in Peachtree City leadership to find out what happened to derail the budget approval process, and to check to see if there were any issues with the budget to begin with. 

According to all city leaders involved, the budget approval process starts back in April. It includes the City Manager meeting with department heads to work on their departmental budgets, and multiple public hearings and reviews over months. City Council gets their say during multiple opportunities along the way to influence the process and set priorities, according to City Manager Justin Strickland. 

Strickland and Finance Director Kelly Bush, who has been with Peachtree City in her department for twelve years, were shocked when the $58 million was not approved in the August 21 council meeting. Bush said when the budget didn’t pass she felt “sick, literally physically ill.” For her, the process had required many late nights in the office, painstakingly going “line by line” in the budget with each and every department.

Bush and Strickland had been given no prior notice that the budget would not pass or that there were any substantial issues with it. Councilmembers Suzanne Brown and Clint Holland stopped the approval in its tracks, insisting on a rollback in the millage rate before they would pass the budget. 

Mayor Kim Learnard and Councilmember Laura Johnson also had no advance notice of Brown and Holland’s hijacking of the process. 

Had Brown and Holland pushed for a rollback in the millage rate previously? Not really. The entire City Council had a scheduled budget review meeting that they declined to keep on June 17, because the consensus was that they were all happy with the budget during their workshop on June 5.

During the review process, on July 10 in a public meeting, Clint Holland said, “Basically, if you want to live in Peachtree City from a tax standpoint, you pay $1.25 cents a day to live in Peachtree City and get a little better services, opportunities, recreation, et cetera. That’s a pretty cheap way to enjoy a wonderful city like Peachtree City. So compliments to you, Mr. City Manager, for putting together that budget.”

If the budget had been approved on August 21, Bush said that she would have immediately started the process that their fiscal year requires, as it begins in October. “We would load it into our software system. We had been working really hard with our communications department to create a more appealing budget book for the citizens. So we had that waiting with the templates to put in the new information when it passed. Our purchasing manager would start creating the new purchase orders for the next year.”

Strickland added that they would have begun planning for the advertising for the four full-time and 10 part-time positions that would have been approved in the new budget. That includes three new firefighters to staff a new station coming online in 2026. If the budget had passed, according to Strickland, “We can go ahead and start putting bids out for projects and for equipment and not actually purchase until the budget begins.”

Strickland and Bush indicated that the equipment that needs to be ordered as quickly as possible to ensure delivery is police vehicles, which are difficult to source and take the most time to procure. Each year the city replaces 10 police vehicles. 

The library’s new HVAC system is pending on the budget approval, and that includes getting a matching grant that could fall through if the budget isn’t approved in time to bid, order, and finish the work by a June 2026 deadline.  

If Justin Strickland had known that council was going to take issue with the millage, the discussion of the last six months would have included how much the millage rate could be rolled back, so he could figure out how much to reduce the budget. 

Strickland explained,  “We estimate what we think property taxes are going to be. We estimate what we think sales tax is going to be. We estimate what we think fines and other revenue sources are going to be. All our different revenue sources we estimate. We don’t know what the numbers are going to be until they actually happen. If the millage does roll back, we need to go in and actually adjust how much revenue is going to come in on the property taxes.”

Strickland bases the whole budgeting process on how much money they can reasonably estimate will come in. Rolling back millage means rolling back expenditures. And what gets cut? Police? Fire? Those services take the biggest portion, 47 percent, of the budget. 

Holland indicated that what he wanted was a “full rollback” meaning that a homeowner’s taxes would be the same this next year as they were last year, regardless of inflation or home price fluctuation. What doesn’t make sense is that because of House Bill 581, property values are frozen for this upcoming tax year. And because the city didn’t increase the millage rate, there is already an effective full millage rollback in place for Peachtree City. That’s without holding the budget hostage to get it. A full rollback is already in play.

It’s worth noting that this doesn’t mean that tax bills will decrease, because the school system opted out of HB581, and their portion of our tax bills is much higher than Peachtree City’s.

Peachtree City doesn’t control the Fayette County School Board, so just what is Holland trying to accomplish? Is it just political posturing in an election year for Holland?

Holland said, “I am putting everybody on notice that my goal when I ran the first time is I want to make sure we spend our money wisely. We tax our people appropriately so we can run our city and do the things that we need to do and put some aside for a rainy day, but we don’t need to be putting a bloated amount away.”

Is Brown and Holland’s request to rollback the millage rate really a request to defund the police? Where else can they cut?

Peachtree City’s millage rate is lower than that charged in neighboring Fayetteville or Tyrone, primarily because they are able to have reduced expenses by managing their own police, fire and EMS services. Effectively, it costs less to live in Peachtree City than in Fayetteville, in a comparably valued home. 

Peachtree City’s millage rate, that set just by the city, is exactly the same this year as last year, and has only decreased over the last four years. 

For critics who may think that the city’s budget is somehow inflated, Strickland also told all departmental heads that the budget would be “flat” this year. Only a 2% cost of living adjustment was added to city salaries. A 2% increase doesn’t even keep up with the rate of inflation. That leaves the 368 city employees in a worse economic situation. There’s a real risk that they’ll find another municipality to work for. And that’s in a budget that didn’t pass. 

The pending budget removed merit pay increases, which rewards employees for their good performance evaluations and also helps keep salaries fair for new versus existing employees.

Holland indicated that the reason he and Brown wanted the rollback was because they felt like the reserve fund was too robust. “I wanted to give back to the people and businesses of Peachtree City some tax dollars from our bloated reserve fund,” said Clint Holland. 

But is it really “bloated?” Newnan and Fayetteville both keep a higher percentage of budget reserves, at about 100%. Peachtree City has 59% in reserves, or $34 million.

According to Bush and Strickland, reserves are not meant to be used as part of the ongoing budget. Per state guidelines, reserves are for capital projects like purchasing the gun range next to the police station, and natural disasters like what hit Newnan in 2021 when an EF-4 tornado leveled many buildings and homes. 

Reserves also can’t be given as a rebate to homeowners—that’s against state law. Strickland said, “The question has been asked by a council member, can we give a one-time rebate to citizens? We cannot do that. The only time you can do that is if you tax incorrectly. If your formula was wrong and you tax what you shouldn’t have. We have not done that.”

Do these reserves even mean taxes are too high? Bush says much of the reserve money came in because of governmental funding during COVID19, when income to the city was precarious. Even now, reserves are being used to purchase capital expenses, like the tract of land for $794,000 that was approved on August 21 by council. 

“You have to think for our citizens, is it more advantageous for us to be able to pay cash when we need to for these big things instead of relying on debt for every big thing we have to do?” Strickland asked rhetorically. 

Bush concurred with Strickland, also adding that the size of the reserve in Peachtree City is one of the reasons that Moody’s gave the city an AAA Bond Rating in 2023, enabling the city to borrow at lower rates, when needed. The lower rates they receive mean that sometimes they borrow funds, and leave their reserves to make a higher percentage in the bonds and funds they are invested in, according to Kelly Bush. It’s responsible money management. 

Strickland’s only option if the millage rate is rolled back is to start cutting back on salaries and services. “Just like in personal finances, you should not be operating your day-to-day operations on reserves. You shouldn’t be living off your savings account. I mean, that’s just my philosophy. If you’re going to roll the millage back, we need to cut expenses to match that and not make up operating expenses with reserves,” said Strickland. 

What would Peachtree City Citizens want to do without? Fewer hours at the library? Less patrols on the cart paths? Fewer recreation hours at Kedron? 

What are all the great amenities in Peachtree City worth? Kelly Bush said, “At the end of the day, an average home, $508,000 pays $1,200 a year to Peachtree City. That’s a hundred dollars a month for a $500,000 home. Most homes pay more than that in their HOAs.” 

City Manager Strickland added, “There are communities in Georgia that have real problems. They cannot fund street paving; they cannot fund pipe replacements. They have homeless people. Peachtree City is not one of those places. We are able to do things that other places are not able to do. We have a hundred mile multi-use path system that other communities could only dream of, we have our recreation, and we have the highest rated roads in the state of Georgia.”

What happens if the budget just doesn’t pass? On October 1, there would be a government shut down, just like we’ve seen at the federal level. Only the essentials would continue, including police and fire. The mowing on public lands, the library, all recreation would shut down, according to staff. 

However, both Holland and Mayor Learnard indicated that they would likely agree to a Continuing Resolution. That continues last year’s budget until this year’s can be approved. Ironically, this year’s budget is slightly higher than next year’s proposed budget. 

Because the council is split with a 2 vs. 2 vote of Brown and Holland not passing the budget, and Johnson and Learnard approving, they are at a stalemate. 

Holland indicated when asked point blank if he would not pass the budget without a millage rollback, “That was what I said the other night, and I’m standing by that right now. I would like to see that done and the city can afford it for sure. No question about that. I can’t be any more clear than that.” 

Holland said that he’d been trying to rollback the millage rate for some time, but the records from this year’s budget season don’t reflect that. 

According to Justin Strickland, “Budget schedule starts in April. In April at our work session, I asked council what their goals were for the budget so we as staff could start to shape the budget around what they were looking for. Millage rollback was not one of those goals.” 

Strickland said, “We work for a majority of council. If one council member brings up one point, it does not become a directive unless the majority of council agrees with that. We go with the consensus. 

Strickland has no interest in cutting library hours or defunding the police. He said, “Our top budget policy that we read in every meeting is that we maintain service levels. That’s our top goal. And if we add anything, then we have to have a revenue source to match what we add.”

What could end this showdown about the budget? Potentially the November 4 election. Although the person who wins Post 4, the open seat, is not seated immediately, Peachtree City Council can vote any person to fill an empty seat. A person who has already been elected to that seat would have a better shot at getting appointed. But that leaves over a month of old budget in a continuing resolution or Peachtree City government shutdown. 

“We think what staff has proposed is a very conservative and reasonable budget to operate the city at the current levels of service. We are operating the city with current market prices and current costs. But what we need in the end is a budget. So we think what we propose is very conservative and provides the services we’ve been asked to provide by our council and citizens, but we need council to decide to pass something,” concluded Strickland. 

Mayor Kim Learnard said, “Our budget, as presented by the city manager, was an example of government transparency, robust citizen input and six months’ worth of conversations and public meetings. It was understood amongst council members to meet the directives that we had laid out originally for our city manager. And we had no reason to believe otherwise or that it would not pass. So for it to not pass because of members who had obviously orchestrated a hijacking without notifying staff, without notifying their fellow city council members, without notifying the citizens, is derelict. What do we need to do now? We need to pass the budget that the city worked on for six months.”

Councilmember Suzanne Brown did not respond to our request for an interview for this article.