As the county commission prepares to vote Tuesday on whether to outsource building permits and inspections, some question the legality of the contract.

Mayor Robert Reichert and County Manager Keith Moffett have proposed hiring SAFEBuilt Georgia LLC to provide services based on a 60-40 split of the estimated $1.2 million in fees collected annually, with the company getting an estimated $720,000 and some additional hourly fees.

Local contractor David Thompson, who actually favors overhauling the county’s current Business Development Services Department, has raised concerns over whether the agreement complies with state law.

“It’s cutesy accounting to me and I have no place for cutesy accounting when I pay taxes and their salaries,” Thompson said Friday.

Georgia law allows local governments to collect regulatory fees to perform services designed to protect public health, safety and welfare but they cannot use those fees to raise revenue for general purposes.

Mark Woodall, director of government affairs for the Associated General Contractors of Georgia, said his organization does not have a preference as to whether a government or private company provides the service, but he does question the division of the fees.

He asked: “If SAFEbuilt is charging 60 percent, what will the 40 percent fund pay for?”

“It cannot be used as a means of raising revenue,” Woodall said.

Thompson said the county’s response to his inquiry has been that the 40 percent, or about $480,000, would pay for rent for SAFEbuilt’s operation, record storage and other unforeseen things.

“Do you believe anybody is going to track that money? I don’t,” Thompson said. “I think they’re just asking for a lawsuit.”

Thompson estimates there would be about $360,000 remaining.

“That’s big money,” he said. “You can’t over-collect in fees to go into the general budget. Show me the money.”

The administration’s overarching plan for Business Development Services would beef up the code enforcement division that tackles blight and retain it under county control.

That enhanced blight effort also would be funded by the county’s share, Moffett said.

“We don’t anticipate any issue,” Moffett said Friday.

When some commissioners questioned whether the county should receive more than 40 percent, senior assistant county attorney Michael McNeill cautioned them.

“We’ve represented to the public that 40 percent is adequate to operate,” McNeill said.

Increasing the percentage “puts us in a position where we are more subject to challenge or litigation over this.”

The collection of alcohol licenses and business occupation tax is expected to shift to the tax commissioner.

As the commission wrangled for weeks over the proposal, a short-term contract that had SAFEbuilt running the department expires at the end of February.

One hurdle blocking commissioners Bert Bivins and Mallory Jones’s support of the plan was eliminated before the Committee of the Whole approved the plan. It now goes to the full commission Tuesday for a vote.

In the event the county or SAFEbuilt used the 90-day out in the 5-year contract, they were concerned about a clause that prohibited the county from recruiting SAFEbuilt employees, including former workers from Macon-Bibb, for another full year after the term of the contract. The extra year was removed from the clause and commissioners were told that former workers could reapply but the county could not actively recruit them for the five-year term.

Architect Kamal Azar attended last Tuesday’s committee meeting and told commissioners he’s had a positive experience with the new SAFEbuilt team.

“I think the company is more progressive,” Azar said. “The process they’ve presented to use is more appealing. It’s what we’re seeing in other towns.”

Other contractors raised concerns during a public meeting earlier this month.

Commissioner Virgil Watkins still opposes the concept of privatization.

“For the life of me, I can’t get over… can’t understand why it’s so impossible to hire an in-house director,” Watkins said.

Reichert explained the contract will give the department flexibility.

SAFEbuilt contracts with other local governments in Georgia and has a pool of employees to call on when needed.

“Community after community have said that this is one of the services that works better with outsourcing,” Reichert said. “We don’t need to keep this in-house with a static number of employees who are either too much or too little.”

Contact Civic Reporting Senior Fellow Liz Fabian at [email protected] or 478-301-2976.

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