I know how to solve our problems! Appoint a Commission.

Sorry, I’m doing this quickly, and may not be as careful as I usually am. I just read the PR release about the task force.

What do you know! A “task force” has been established to look at the governance of DeKalb County, perhaps with the intent of appearing to fix something. The committee was announced with the following discussion topics: (Note that it’s “empowered to explore and study”, not to recommend legislation and implement.)

 The 15-member committee is empowered to explore and study

(1)the financial, business, zoning and quality of life impact on residents and government operations caused by the creation of new cities and annexations;

(2) the effectiveness of the current governance structure of DeKalb County and ethics and transparency in County operations;

 (3) the equitable distribution of Homestead Option Sales Tax (HOST) proceeds and legacy pension costs between the DeKalb County and it's cities; and

(4) other related matters.

 And after all of the public fiascos involving our County government, what did our CEO highlight as things to look at?

•  The evil cities in the County who want to annex parts of unincorporated DeKalb (watch out Decatur, Chamblee  and Avondale!); and the evil people who want to create new cities.  That’s certainly the most important thing for the county to address -- NOT.

• The effectiveness of structure and the ethics and transparency of County Operations. If this had been the sole purpose of the task force, they would have had a real mission. And if the results had been serious, it might make all of our lives better.

• How do we get more money into the County slush funds – we all still have some friends who we haven’t paid off yet. I know, we can go after more of the HOST funds – 80% isn’t enough; let’s go for 90% more free money.

• How do we fix the problem that we don’t want to fund our pensions – maybe we can force someone else to do that?

Can we get serious here? A few basic principles:

1. The existence of Cities in the County is not in any way the source of problems with either the governance or corruption in the County government. In fact, stronger cities will make it harder for the money to be diverted, and will provide a stronger voice for the citizens against corruption.
2. Transparency and ethics in any organization starts at the top and feeds down. In any organization the CEO can demand ethical performance from the employees. Of course that only works if the CEO is clearly ethical himself. A Board of Directors both defines the ethical performance of an organization and enforces those ethics.  You do not need to go beyond that level to identify the problem. We have a governmental attitude both nationally and locally that bad performance and bad actions have no consequences.
3. I’m still waiting for the one situation in which the County government would say “let’s put all this money into solving the most important and pressing issues”. What actually happens is “Oh boy! We’ve got more money to pass around this year”.  Lack of money is NOT DeKalb County’s problem.
4. And blaming someone else for the Commission’s failure to fund pensions is the worst kind of passing the buck.  They had an extra $20 million to spend this year because of increases in tax receipts.  How much of that went into solving the unfunded pension problem?  It’s a lot easier to play games so that you can blame someone else than to solve a problem.