Georgia County Government - January 2009 - (Page 19)

BULLOCH COUNTY continued from page 17 Smith, Road Superintendent Edwin Smith, Engineer Kirk Tatum, Chief Magistrate June Braswell, Public Safety Director Edwin L. Wynn, Jr., Warden William Tompkins, and Chief Tax Assessor John Scott. Restructuring in the past few years has brought changes to service delivery and management, Couch says. “We’ve shifted priorities and resources to a ‘core’ service emphasis. With the population nearly doubling in the last 30 years; accelerating community wealth and the tax base it produced has now slowed, and commissioners face having to put more resources into maintenance of existing capital resources, while public safety and criminal justice system needs climb.” Efficiency enhancements like online tax payments, fuel conservation plans and consolidation of banking services, combined will help the county realize more than $500,000 annually in future savings, Couch also notes. Financially, Couch adds, Bulloch County’s annual general appropriations budget now exceeds $54 million, and the county manages assets of more than $85 million. The county has among the lowest base ad valorem tax rates for county services in the state, at 10.44 mills. There are now 365 full time-employees budgeted, however, a reliance on part-time employees in recreation and solid waste increases the full-time equivalent to 600. Including inmates from the County Correctional Institute, the number working for the county is more than 750. The Marvin Pittman Administration Building is located on the campus of Georgia Southern University. Photo courtesy of Frank Fortune, Georgia Southern University. Economic Growth and Initiatives Georgia Southern University cannot be underestimated for its importance to Statesboro, Bulloch County and the region, officials here note. A recent study put the regional impact of the University for Bulloch and surrounding counties to be more than $748 million, including the creation of more than 10,000 jobs above its direct employment base of more than 1,800 workers. However, the venerable college is not the only economic bonanza in the county. Officials are proud that Bulloch County has balanced the college’s impact with a growing economy, becoming a regional trade center for commerce, education, and health care in its own right. A major challenge, officials claim, will be duplicating the county’s success in growing its industrial base at the same rate accomplished in the 1990s, owing to more intense competition by other communities in the region for potential economic development projects. There is also, however, impetus to form regional economic development alliances of a unique and valuable kind. Exciting plans in this vein call for targeting manufacturing industries and locating an industrial park closer to Interstate 16 for industrial warehousing and distribution facilities, in conjunction with the Port of Savannah. Working in tandem with the Economic Development office of the Port of Savannah, the county has cultivated a relationship in the past few years, envisioning an intermodal transfer facility that will promote “container matching.” If the Port has an imbalance of imports and exports, and must store empty containers until someone picks them up, such a facility would be very advantageous to the Port and to Bulloch County. Bulloch County has changed its strategy somewhat in recent years, note Couch and Tankersley. “Whereas in the 1990s, a high-growth phase for industrial development when the economy was pretty much booming in our sate, industries came to us.” Today, though, tactics call for expanding an already large industrial park toward attracting more supplier industries to complement the larger industries now in place. “We’ve come up with an innovative incentives package,” Couch asserts. In 2004, the Development Authority of Bulloch County, with the financial assistance and support of commissioners, acquired 294 acres of land to begin BULLOCH COUNTY continued on page 20 408820_Splash.indd 1 JANUARY 2009 www.accg.org 11/16/08 19 11:58:55 AM http://www.splashintheboro.com http://www.accg.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Georgia County Government - January 2009

Georgia County Government - January 2009 Contents President’s Message County Matters Forward-Thinking Bulloch County Leaders Put Progress on the Front Burner Robert Farris: Champion for Georgia’s Forests ACCG, BCBS of Georgia Work Together to Improve County Employee Health Georgia’s Grand Old Courthouses: McIntosh County Extension News: Cooperative Extension Generates ROI Research Corner: How Does Your County Rate? County Parade Index of Advertisers

Georgia County Government - January 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.