Executive Director's
Report- Pre-Convention Issue 2004
Organizations
Must Work Together for Counties The Association
of County Commissions of Alabama (ACCA), as its name implies, exists primarily
to provide services to the 67 county commissions in the state. It has always been
my position that the most important service the ACCA provides is representing
the interest of county commissions before the Alabama Legislature. This position
is understandable because in this state the legislature has enormous control over
the functions provided by county government and the revenue sources with which
it is funded. Because of the way county government
in Alabama is structured and funded, the ACCA members and staff cannot just focus
their legislative efforts singularly on matters relating directly to county commissions.
They must also pay close attention to legislative matters relating to county government
functions headed by the judge of probate, sheriff, taxing officials, and others.
The functions and services provided under the direction of these officials are
important and must be preserved and protected. The ACCA members and staff are
also aware that some of these functions generate revenue in the form of taxes,
fees, and assessments that end up in the county treasury and eventually budgeted
by the county commission.
The ACCA membership
meets each year in December and approves as many as a dozen items it wants the
legislature to address during the upcoming regular session. The ACCA staff will
have the items drafted in the form of bills and then find members of the legislature
willing to introduce them. A great deal of time and effort will be spent working
the bills through the legislative process. But passing bills is not all that is
involved. During a typical regular session, the ACCA staff will identify and track
as many as 300 bills that may have some impact on county government. The staff
may support some of these bills, oppose some or try to amend some. Altogether,
the whole process of trying to keep up with and affect the legislative process
involves an enormous effort on the part of the ACCA staff and membership.
Occasionally legislation has been considered
by the Alabama Legislature that had the potential of affecting county revenue
to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars. This was especially true during
the First Special Session of 2003. During this session the Legislature passed
10 revenue raising measures estimated to generate about $1.2 billion for state
government. Upon reviewing the revenue raising package the ACCA staff determined
that the net effect of the package as introduced would be to reduce county revenue
by hundreds of millions of dollars. The governor and other supporters of the package
simply did not understand all the laws relating to local taxation and those relating
to tax proceeds shared with county government. An unprecedented fight erupted
involving the Legislature, the governor and the ACCA. When the special session
concluded the ACCA was successful in reducing the potential revenue loss, but
in the final analysis many counties would have lost millions. Of course the package
failed at a special election and therefore did not become law.
A
similar situation occurred during the Regular Session of 2004. The Legislature
was again trying to find additional revenue and several measures were introduced
that would have reduced or diverted county revenue. The ACCA staff and members
were successful in minimizing the effect of these measures.
It
is disconcerting to me that the ACCA staff and membership have fought these major
battles almost single-handedly. I must temper that last statement by pointing
out that numerous individual probate judges and tax officials have helped significantly
in many of the serious battles fought through the years and especially during
recent legislative sessions. In fact, if it were not for some of the probate judges
and tax officials help during the special session last year we would not have
been able to make the impact we did. My concern is that while we have received
some assistance from individual probate judges and tax officials, we have almost
never had any official assistance from the organizations representing them.
There exists in the state today, the Probate
Judges Association of Alabama (PJAA), the Alabama Association of Tax Administrators
(AATA), and the Alabama Sheriffs Association (ASA). The PJAA and the AATA do not
have full-time employees, nor do they maintain permanent offices. They do, however,
employ contract lobbyists to represent their interest before the Alabama Legislature.
The ASA does have full-time employees and maintains an office in Montgomery. It
is my understanding that public funds are involved in the funding of these organizations,
just as public funds are used to support the ACCA.
With
respect to the PJAA and the AATA, it has been my observation through the years
that the contract lobbyists hired by these organizations are engaged for the primary
purposes of affecting personal interest legislation (salaries, retirement benefits,
etc.) and legislation that may affect the performances of the specific duties
and responsibilities of these office holders. These two organizations have enjoyed
some successes through the use of contract lobbyists and on a few occasions such
lobbyists have lent assistance to the ACCA staff on specific issues.
It
is true that in most counties the Sheriff's Department and the jail together receive
the largest percentage of the county general fund budget. These are extremely
important functions and by their nature command significant portions of county
financial resources. Why then were the full-time employees and members of the
ASA not shoulder-to-shoulder with the ACCA staff and members during the First
Special Session of 2003 and Regular Session of 2004 fighting to preserve the revenues
of county government?
The comments and concerns
I have related here are not aimed at any individual office holder. I know personally
many probate judges, tax officials (assessors, collectors, revenue and license
commissioners) and sheriffs. Most are among the finest people I have ever known.
Most simply want to provide excellent services to the citizens that elected them.
My beef is with what I view as a serious lack of support from the state-wide organizations
that represent them. I would like to think that each of the statewide organizations
representing these county officials have adopted official positions opposing any
legislation that would have an adverse affect on current revenue or that would
restrict the ability of counties to generate revenue in the future. I would also
like to think that when legislation surfaces that violates that policy, the members
of the respective organizations would oppose any such efforts as an organization
as well as individually.
Money is not the
only ingredient necessary for the purveying of quality governmental services.
It is, however, extremely important. All the "courthouse officials"
and the organizations that represent them should work together to ward off any
attempts to divert or limit county revenue sources.
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