City of Dalton officials could send the first full revision of the city’s charter in at least 50 years to the state legislature for final approval next month. The legislature would vote on the new charter in its next session, which starts in January.
On Monday, the City Council held a work session on a proposed draft of the charter, which officials have been working on for the past year.
“We’ve gone through and ensured that the charter is in compliance with state law,” said Jonathan Bledsoe, an attorney with the Minor Firm, who helped write the draft charter.
“There have been some recent changes in state law,” he said. “We have tried to provide clarity where that was needed. We’ve tried to continue to give you a broad grant of powers, which is really what this is designed to do, to give you the broadest powers going forward that you can have.”
Bledsoe said he and other attorneys at the firm have also been going over the city code of ordinances to make sure the proposed charter and city laws are not in conflict.
“One of the bigger changes is that we moved the Public Works Committee as well as a number of other committees that were not formed by the original charter from the charter to the ordinances,” Bledsoe said. “These are things that really should be in the ordinances because you are going to make changes to them over the years.”
Bledsoe said the Georgia Municipal Association’s model charter says that municipal judges should be at-will employees of the city, which had been standard practice in the state. But state law has changed, giving municipal judges some protection.
“It is not an at-will position anymore,” he said. “So we tweaked that to say judges will serve at will unless provided by ordinance or other law.”
The proposed new charter originally would have allowed Dalton Public Schools to issue its own debt rather than go through the city, a change requested by school system officials.
But Bledsoe said city officials expressed concern that might cause the city to exceed its debt limit. Under the state constitution the city’s debt cannot exceed 10% of the assessed value of property in the city. So he placed in the proposed charter language that says “any debt that may limit, alter or otherwise affect the ability of the city to incur debt shall first be approved by the city of Dalton.”
Council members expressed concern that the school system could take on debt that could affect the city, and the council members would have no veto until it is too late. Bledsoe said he did not think the school system could take on any debt without affecting the city, so the way the section is written they would still have to get approval from the City Council.
“Let’s just keep it the way it is,” said Mayor David Pennington.
Bledsoe said he would change that section to make it clear the school system has to come to the council for any debt it issues.
The section on Dalton Utilities would change language that said the transfer payment the utility sends to the city each year is determined by agreement between the City Council and the utility to say it is determined by the City Council.
The draft also states that the City Council appoints the fire and police chiefs, not the Public Safety Commission.
Bledsoe said the draft charter makes it clear that when it is enacted “all the positions remain the same, salaries remain the same, everything remains the same.” He said that at the council’s request that section had been tweaked to make it clear the council can delegate the authority to change some employees’ salaries.
“That’s certainly something you don’t want to vote on every time,” he said.