DeKalb County's new GIS model explores the financial impact of incorporation

The November 12 Task Force on Dekalb County Operations meeting featured a presentation by Dr. Alfie Meek from GA Tech. Dr. Meek is part of a team that has developed a model to help DeKalb County better understand how incorporations impact the county's overall budget. Previous tools focused on revenue, which is easier to calculate as property and commercial tax data and business license data are readily available. This new model creates a more nuanced picture by looking at revenue vs operation costs.

The model focuses on three county funds (271, 272 and 274), as opposed to on all 30+ county funds, because those three funds are the ones that are impacted when incorporation occurs. A fund is a part of the county's budget that focuses on specific functions.

This computer model currently resides at GA Tech but will move to DeKalb County's servers by the end of the month. The public will have access. The model is not perfect but it is a great start, as it allows the users to quickly look at the costs of servicing a certain area.

To help users orient themselves, the model includes some pre-set locations to zoom into areas of interest (e.g. location of contested areas such as Executive Park). To demonstrate how the system works, Dr. Meek drew a polygon around a "test city" and pulled residential and commercial digest data as well as expenses for services to the area.  These expenses are estimated based on a line item review of existing county budgets. As was explained, the model is only as good as the data upon which it is built, and many municipalities (i.e., not just our county) cannot provide the level of detail that would be ideal for this type of simulation. That means very specific data such as where an emergency call originates and the time it takes a county employee to respond to the call and complete required actions (this example related to whether it's costlier to police commercial areas vs. residential areas). Another example discussed road maintenance, where municipalities traditionally estimate maintenance costs based on number of miles and not on a formula that accounts for both miles and number of lanes. Through individual and combined views of the three funds mentioned above, the map changes color to show if an area is a donor (that produces more revenue than it uses in services) or a recipient. Numerical and bar graph breakdowns of revenue vs. operation cost are also displayed. Users can save queries and return to them later (this data is stored at the user's computer).

The model interface allows users to select/deselect blocks to ensure the polygon covers the desired area. The model uses the existing blocks into which the county is divided but annexations rarely respect such tidy boundaries; the model would need higher resolution to provide a more granular view of finances (so, ~2000 blocks vs the current ~200+ block units that describe the whole county). This is an important point as annexations are being drawn to neatly hug the lines of desirable commercial property and the model cannot account for part of a block, just the whole block. The model assumes that a new city will take over all services and there is some flexibility to "add the services back" for example, in the case of police services. It becomes harder to generate "a la carte" scenarios and hopefully the model will continue to be refined.

The model will be applied to maps for proposed cities (the Briarcliff/Lakeside and Tucker maps are supposed to be finalized by November 15). The new model should allow some comparison between county data and data in city feasibility studies. As noted by an audience member, we can expect to see discrepancies as feasibility studies use different methodologies for their calculations. An example was that the DeKalb budget currently allocates about $3-4K per year per acre  for park maintenance but a Vinson Institute study used a $11K/year figure, based on other sources. In other words, we will soon have more information but will still need to wade through some thickets to get to the bottom of things.

Lastly, a note to naysayers: we should refrain from dwelling on why the county did not have this tool already and focus on what this model brings to the table and how it can be built upon to provide increasingly accurate data on county operations. For those who want to know what DeKalb County is doing differently this year, compared to last year, this is an example. Also see links to the Task Force website and Blueprint for DeKalb initiative on the right margin.

Our thanks to Dr. Meek and "Jay" (budget guy) for ably handling the presentation and to the Operations Task Force for getting the ball rolling on this model.

MANA annexation survey results

Abstract: The Medlock Area Neighborhood Association has been tracking annexation and cityhood proposals affecting the northern area of DeKalb County, specifically for impacts on our neighborhood and services. We conducted a survey that garnered responses from ~28.5% of our ~1400 households. At this time, there is no clear consensus among our residents about the proposals presented in the survey, but we believe that City of Decatur’s annexation of primarily commercial real estate is unreasonable and detrimental to unincorporated DeKalb residents and schools. MANA recommends that we continue to actively explore all our options, seek and distribute relevant information, foster neighborhood discussions, and direct our concerns to elected officials.

Response Rate: Approximately 1400 newsletters and surveys were distributed door to door by MANA volunteers. 438 surveys were completed. 127(~28%) surveys were completed on paper and either mailed or filled out at the October 27 meeting—a reminder to not assume that we can reach everyone online. Most respondents included either a name or a survey number; 19 responded anonymously (no name or code). Thirty-seven codes were used more than once (35 were used twice each, two were used three times each, meaning that multiple adults in the same home completed the survey). We estimate that ~28.5% of targeted households completed the survey.

RESULTS:

Question 1: How would you vote on a proposal to become part of the City of Decatur?

61.90% Join Decatur

37.10% Remain in Unincorporated DeKalb

Question 2: How would you vote on a proposal to become part of a new city to the north (currently represented by the Briarcliff and/or Lakeside proposals)?

63.59% Join Briarcliff/Lakeside

36.41% Remain in Unincorporated DeKalb

Question 3: How would you vote on a proposal to become part of the City of Atlanta?

58.39% Remain in Unincorporated DeKalb

41.61% Join Atlanta

Question 4:  Would you support a one-year moratorium on all new cities and annexations in DeKalb Couty?

61.75% 1-year moratorium

38.25% Legislature should decide now

Question 5 asked respondents to rank available options in order of preference. 

Based on responses for “Most Favorite” (1) column, the proposals were ranked as follows:

1. Join City of Decatur (41.5%)

2. Remain Unincorporated (19.54%)

3. 1-year moratorium on all annexations (17.70%)

4. Join new city of Briarcliff/Lakeside (15.86%)

5. Join the City of Atlanta (5.75%)

DISCUSSION

We are happy with the level of participation in the survey but most importantly with how both the survey and newsletter have spurred discussion about our neighborhood’s future. 

The survey results are rather mixed and do not give the Board of the Medlock Area Neighborhood Association a clear mandate. Although Question 5 of the survey had annexation to Decatur as the top choice for 41.5% of respondents, that is not an overwhelming majority. Furthermore, City of Decatur has made it clear that it wants to annex commercial property in and near our neighborhood but not the neighborhood as a whole. Decatur’s commercial annexation proposal is unreasonable and we will continue to fight it, as we believe North Decatur Road commercial properties should continue to primarily serve the established neighborhoods that they have been part of for so many years.

Other questions in the survey also yielded mixed results. As to supporting cityhood as a concept, although results were over 60% in favor of joining Decatur or a new city (Briarcliff/Lakeside), they were in the 40% range for joining Atlanta. Over 62% supported a one-year moratorium on all annexations and new cities; only 38% felt the state should decide for us in the coming 2015 legislative session. Question 5 indicated that a one-year moratorium and remaining unincorporated were strong contenders under the “most favorite” category, but a large number of people also ranked remaining unincorporated in their “least favorite” category. 

The top three concerns among respondents who commented are Decatur’s unreasonable commercial annexation plan and potential impacts on our schools and property taxes. 

CONCLUSIONS

• This is a critical time in our neighborhood history.

• The MANA Board does not believe our neighborhood has reached a consensus on how to proceed and is not advocating a particular outcome at this time. 

• The MANA Board believes that it is important that nearby commercial areas continue to serve as large a number of citizens as possible, as they have done historically. There are many millions of dollars at stake, with many more to come as the Medline LCI area continues to develop and draw new businesses. It is unreasonable for City of Decatur to unilaterally claim these resources.

Click to enlarge, via http://www.decaturga.com/
Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=5445.
Medlock Park label added for clarity. 

How much money is at stake? Commissioner Jeff Rader helped us contact DeKalb County's Tax Commissioner Office and GIS unit; we asked them to look at areas A and B in Decatur's annexation map and how the transfer of these commercial properties would impact the DeKalb County School System budget. Area A includes businesses around the North Decatur Road/Clairmont intersection (i.e., Emory Commons, etc. among others) while Area B includes the whole Medline LCI study area (Suburban Plaza, Scott Blvd Baptist Church development, etc. and also Medlock Plaza where Melton's is located). We were informed as follows:  

Zone A – $759,816.06   [N Decatur Rd / Clairmont Rd]

Zone B – $4,747,637.06  [Medline LCI, etc.]

The County analysts that looked up this information for us clarified that “These figures represent the exact amount that we billed on the School’s behalf for those parcels. This will not be the same for the City of Decatur because of different exemptions and the varied assessment level of 40% to 50%.”

These cityhood and annexation discussions always include uncertainty: it is very difficult to pin down exact dollar amounts. But even factoring in “wiggle room” for jurisdictional differences, these are significant amounts of money that would preferentially serve City of Decatur schools and will no longer be allocated to children in the much larger DeKalb County School System. The calculation does not project into the future and we know that as Suburban Plaza is redeveloped and as the Medline LCI area grows and flourishes, revenues from Zone B will only go higher and higher. 

• Whatever its source(s), we must fight the pressure to make uninformed decisions. We are still in a position where not enough information is available and must be very careful and measured in our movements: decisions made blindly will cost us dearly. 

• MANA recommends that we continue to actively explore all our options. MANA will continue to facilitate meetings, track developments, share information as quickly as possible, and encourage our residents to contact elected officials to ensure our neighborhood’s concerns and wishes are well represented.