Clayton County departments outline FY2027 requests, flag staffing, equipment and a $5.2M incubator plan

Clayton County department heads presented their FY2027 budget requests during a public series of presentations, pressing officials for staffing reclassifications, training dollars and program funding while flagging uncertainty from recent state legislation affecting elections.

Sierra Dunn, administrator for the Clayton County Office of Youth Services, said the office aims to serve youth ages 14 to 24 and set an annual participation goal of 900. "Our goal is for 900 participants to serve and receive resources every fiscal year. And by the end of quarter three, we have already reached 1,429 youth," Dunn said, and she urged the board to approve reclassifying a part-time program supervisor to full time. She also requested increasing the food budget from $4,500 to $5,500 to ensure meals at programs and sustain attendance.

Valerie Fuller, Communications Administrator for the Office of Communications and Print Services, described a FY27 request that remains modestly below FY26 but asked to increase the part-time budget from $39,000 to $52,000 after recent resignations. Fuller said county staff and HR were asked to cost out converting two part-time positions into a single full-time "videography specialist" while keeping the office inside its net budget.

Emmett George, chief appraiser in the Tax Assessor's Office, said the biggest FY27 pressure is travel and training tied to Department of Revenue certification requirements. "There are basically no more classes that do not require travel," he said, asking the board to cover increased training-related travel costs.

Leslie Moore, director of Internal Audit, asked for $9,000 to maintain continuing professional education and certifications required by government auditing standards (the GAO Yellow Book).

Patrick Ejike, director of Community and Economic Development, presented two sustained contract needs—an outsourced building-inspection/plan-review contract and a planning/zoning consultant—and described consulting work with Pond & Company at roughly $408,000. Ejike outlined plans to expand a small-business incubator into a 20,000-square-foot facility with an estimated build-out cost of $5,224,229 to support startups and local entrepreneurs.

Elections Director Shauna Dozier warned the board that Senate Bill 189 has eliminated QR codes on current voting equipment and that the county faces an equipment transition by the July 1 start of the fiscal year, with guidance and funding from the state still uncertain. Dozier also noted the recent death of Congressman David Scott and the potential for a special election that could fall in FY2027. She highlighted operational costs including a $28,000 request for registration training and travel, increased poll-worker pay to cover 1,200–2,800 election workers depending on election size, added security at advance-voting sites, and a push for more directional signage at polling locations.

The District Attorney (name not stated in the transcript) urged the board to fund roughly $325,000 to provide merit increases for county-paid prosecutors and staff to stem turnover, describing difficulty competing with neighboring counties. The DA also urged readiness to staff a potential sixth superior-court judge if the state appropriates the post, saying the office needs authority and funds to hire as soon as funding is available.

No formal votes or final budget decisions were recorded in these presentations. Department leaders answered questions from finance staff and board liaisons about cost details, staffing classifications, and whether certain positions had been funded temporarily through ARPA and would need to be included in the regular FY27 budget.

The public budget meetings concluded with the presentations completed and department leaders' requests on the record; the Board of Commissioners will consider the submitted line-item proposals as the county proceeds toward formal adoption of the FY2027 budget.