Significant reductions planned for due to COVID-19
Macon-Bibb’s Proposed FY21 Budget was presented to the Commission at a Special Called Meeting on Tuesday, May 19. This was a virtual meeting – as all recent Commission Meetings have been – due to precautions taken to slow the spread of COVID-19. The proposed budget, full presentation, Mayor’s comments, and FY18-20 can be found by clicking here: www.maconbibb.us/proposedfy21budget.
Because of COVID-19, there is a prediction that governments could see as much as a 15% reduction to their budgets next year, which would mean $25 million for Macon-Bibb County. After reviewing the County’s different revenue streams, the potential impact to each, and the estimated impact to sales tax in April when we were shut down completely, we estimated our revenue for the year could be down about 10%. This number could very easily change since the actual collections for April will not be received until the end of May and May’s collections (when businesses began reopening) won’t be known until the end of June.
A 10% reduction in our budget is about $16.6 million, so expenditures have been reduced expenditures by about $6.6 million through vacant position elimination, furloughs, and more. There would also be $10 million from our fund balance used in order to not further impact employees or services.
A virtual Public Hearing will be held on Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 6:00 p.m., and the budget is scheduled to be voted upon during a Special Called Meeting of the Commission on Tuesday, June 9, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. Both of those will be broadcast live on the Macon-Bibb website at www.maconbibb.us or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/maconbibbcounty). Anyone wishing to provide comment on the proposed budget can send them via email to commission@maconbibb.us by 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2.