Barrett wants to lift Fulton’s 5% ceiling on budget requests

Fulton Commissioner Dana Barrett wants departments to be able to ask for more in the 2027 budget—and have their full requests appear in the proposed spending plan. Commissioners are scheduled to consider her resolution to remove a 5% request cap on Oct. 21.⁠[1][2]

The distinction: permission to ask is not permission to spend. The draft would prohibit limits on requests from county-funded departments, agencies, elected officials and authorities. Commissioners would still determine appropriations through adoption of the final budget.⁠[2]

Barrett’s draft says the newly established Budget Commission has limited departments’ requests for additional funding to 5% of their base budgets for 2027, allowing broader needs to be described only in narrative form. That is the draft’s account of the restriction; the Budget Commission’s underlying instructions and explanation for the limit were not included in the records reviewed.⁠[2]

The draft offers a telling comparison: during the 2026 budget process, 27 of Fulton’s 41 General Fund departments and agencies requested enhancements exceeding 5% of their base budgets. Fourteen received budget increases above 5%, according to the resolution.⁠[2]

The measure would let county-funded bodies submit any 2027 enhancement requests omitted because of the cap and require their inclusion in the proposed budget the resolution says will be presented Nov. 15. It would change what reaches commissioners for consideration, without guaranteeing those requests will be funded.⁠[2]

The Oct. 21 meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Assembly Hall at the Fulton County Government Center, 141 Pryor Street SW in Atlanta. The resolution appears as agenda item 26-0729 and remains an approval request, not an adopted budget change.⁠[1]