No vote. No meeting. Shannon Whitfield criticizes Walker County's $1 million loan

photo Shannon Whitfield
photo Perry Lamb
photo Bebe Heiskell

Walker County, Ga., commissioner candidate Shannon Whitfield says the county accepted a "deceptive" $1 million loan last month.

Whitfield, who is running against Perry Lamb and incumbent sole Commissioner Bebe Heiskell in the Nov. 8 election, said during a debate on UCTV's "Night Talk" on Tuesday that Heiskell should not have taken the loan without a public meeting. Heiskell, in turn, said the money she received was not a loan so much as an investment.

Heiskell received the money from the Walker County Water & Sewage Authority. In the confusing layout of a local government, the authority is an arm of the county. But still, the two are technically separate.

The authority has its own five-member board and receives funding from the water bills that residents pay each month.

David Ashburn, the authority's general manager, said Heiskell needed the $1 million to pay the county's day-to-day expenses through mid-October. Then the county would receive an insurance rebate and some of the property taxes for the new fiscal year. It should soon be able to pay back the $1 million loan, at an interest rate of 4-5 percent, he said.

The authority's board did not vote on the loan. Ashburn said it doesn't need to because the situation is similar to investing money in a bank, which normally gives an interest rate of about 0.3 percent. Heiskell also said a public meeting was not needed.

"The water authority invests money," Heiskell said Tuesday night. "They are investing some money with us at an interest rate for a very short period of time. And they don't have to ask a lot of questions about that."

Whitfield poked fun at Heiskell's phrasing.

"Well folks, it's very clear the reason they're having to invest - as she calls it - money in Walker County," he said. "The county ran out of money."

He said the authority's board should have voted on this loan, and Heiskell should have announced it in a public meeting. The $1 million loan is in addition to a $5 million tax anticipation note that Heiskell had to take out in June - accounting for about half of the property tax revenue the county is expecting for the new fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Ashburn said the deal saves the county money because Heiskell does not need to bring in outside lawyers or financial experts to draw it up. Those people all would demand their own fees. Instead, County Attorney Don Oliver wrote a promissory note for the authority.

John Culpepper, an authority board member, said money often has been moved between the authority and the county without votes or public meetings. He said the formality is unnecessary.

"It's just a short-term stopgap," he said.

"To try to spin this that the board doesn't make decisions when they move $1 million is just insane to me," Whitfield said. "There's a lot of holes in that spin."

Budget cuts

During the debate Tuesday, all three candidates said Walker County's $22.5 million budget is too large.

Whitfield said the county needs to cut expenses at Mountain Cove Farms and its landfill. According to its most recent audit, the county lost a combined $1.2 million on those functions from October 2014 through September 2015. Whitfield criticized Heiskell for not including a detailed breakdown for the landfill and Mountain Cove Farms in her most recent budget.

Heiskell said public landfills in general don't make money. To turn a profit, she would need to increase the cost for dropping off garbage to a point that would hurt residents, she said. She added that the county bought Mountain Cove Farms only at the request of then-Gov. Sonny Perdue.

She said there isn't a detailed breakdown for the farm because she placed it in an area known as the enterprise account. Still, she said the budget needs to shrink. She didn't provide specific areas to cut Tuesday and did not return a call or an email for this story.

Lamb said he wants to find a use for Mountain Cove Farms. He either wants a grant from the Future Farmers of America to launch a farm-to-school program for fresh food in Walker County cafeterias or to create a jail labor program in which county inmates work the land.

Lamb also said he wants to cut Walker County's participation in the Northwest Georgia Joint Development Authority, which receives about $100,000 from the county every year. And he believes he can help the county save money on construction costs by observing job sites himself, he said.

"We can actually have a commissioner out on the job and [who] knows what's going on, a commissioner that's actually done those jobs," he said. "I'll be a commissioner who won't sit behind a desk. I'll make sure the job is done correctly."

Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.

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