Thank goodness

for Target.

Peachtree City

officials gave tentative agreement to a proposed $26 million budget for

FY04 on Monday, a decision that likely wouldn't have been made so easily

had word not leaked out earlier in the evening that the discount retailer

was the leading tenant planned for a 264,000-square foot addition to Kedron

Village.

Though the

project won't get started until next spring, and will take more than a

year to complete, it will give a boost to sagging city revenues through

impact fees, construction expenses and the like.

And when finished,

the center will bring an untold number of jobs, as well as sales tax revenue

to the county, said Mayor Steve Brown.

The city is

suffering from lagging revenues and rising expenses, and faces its leanest

year fiscally in history. There will be little pork to offer in 2004,

and as designed the budgets for 2005 and 2006 will have to pick up the

slack with full 1 mill tax increases both years, finally leveling off

in 1997.

But City Manager

Bernard McMullen and Financial Services Director Paul Salvatore think

a budget based on a slight millage increase of 0.58 mills this year, coupled

with some deep and creative cuts across all city departments, will work,

as long as it's padded out with increased revenues from a proposed hike

in city court fines and other fees.

That idea was

first proposed by Councilman Dan Tennant as part of a budget alternate

last week; McMullen liked the prospects and did some homework over the

weekend.

While some

fines for traffic violations are set by the state, many others, such as

driving without proof of insurance or littering, can be adjusted locally.

jump in income in a short period of time.

But Peachtree

City Municipal Judge Mitch Powell has yet to weigh in officially on the

matter, and it needs his approval.

Unofficially,

city staffers say he isn't keen on the idea.

Neither is

Police Chief James Murray, who is fully understanding of the city's financial

straits but has no desire to see the police staff viewed by the public

as a "revenue generator."

"We are

here to protect and to serve, not raise funds for the city," Murray

said. "If you create that kind of impression, you are putting my

officers in an uncomfortable situation."

Murray says

he has no idea what the city charges for routine traffic violations, and

doesn't want to know.

"That's

none of our business," he insisted.

Even with agreement

apparently near, Councilman Tennant, who is running for reelection this

year, proposed an across the board 5 percent cut in city staffing Monday,

starting with managers.

He also suggested

that the COLA increase only go to employees of the city's emergency services

division who made up most of the audience for the hearing.

Fellow council

members generally panned Tennant's ideas as unnecessary and against the

will of the city's residents.

"This

would work downtown (in Atlanta), but we provide services here, and that's

what makes this city the great place it is to live," said Steve Rapson.

"Look,

the people who live here are spoiled, and they don't mind paying to be

spoiled," said Annie McMenamin, justifying a slight tax increase.

"When somebody calls me wanting their cart path fixed, they don't

mean next week, next month or six months from now, they mean, 'I'm about

to go out on my cart path, and I expect to see somebody back there working

on it.'"

Said Councilman

Murray Weed, "We all moved here from other places because of the

things that this city has to offer, the streets are clean, our homes are

safe, the grass gets cut and the flowers are planted," he said. "As

long as people are willing to pay for that, I'm not going to cut anybody."

Cuts will come

from all over: $30,000 by eliminating the mailing of the Update newsletter,

posting it online instead; $50,000 by cutting the Council Contingency

Fund to $100,000; $10,000 by slicing the Police Reward Fund to $13,000.

And if the

gamble involving fees and fines doesn't pay off, McMullen has identified

another host of capital "delays" that could ease the pain, though

as a last resort. Among them: Delaying the controversial Gateway Bridge

project over Ga. Highway 54 at Wynnmeade Parkway, at a savings of $120,000.

A public hearing

on the budget is scheduled for Aug. 21, and formal council approval is

expected on Sept. 4.