Paulding Board of Commissioners approved a budget for fiscal 2016 last week after much discussion and progressively less agreement through both morning and afternoon sessions.
In an effort seemingly designed to punish Commission Chairman David Austin and assert their control, the three insurgent commissioners removed funding from the county's budget for the county administrator, government services director and the assistant to the county administrator.
Previously the county administrator position was held by Michael Jones, who has been involved in controversy with Post Commissioner Todd Pownall; with Jones going so far as to allege extortion and asking for an investigation, as reported in local media. 
Last week’s move to remove funding for the positions was passed after a plea from Chairman Austin who begged the post two, three and post four commissioners “...to not make that mistake.”
"If you tie my hands we're going backwards in reverse very, very fast," Chairman Austin told the other Board members.
Pownall told other Board members he hoped they could find more unity in the future, though his comments, made prior to voting, seemed mostly to serve the purpose of underscoring the shifted balance of power on the board.
“I want us all to find some common ground that we can work on to move forward and do some good things...and that we can put those differences aside on those other subjects, and move forward and do the right thing for our community and for this board,” he said.
Prior to voting on the motion, Post 1 Commissioner David Carmichael warned that simply cutting some salaries and doing without someone in an administrator position could potentially cost the county much more money in the long run.
Finance Director Tabitha Pollard said cuts made by the post commissioners represented $350,000 in salaries and benefits by cutting the three positions.
Commissioner’s Pownall and Collett also spent some time during the Board’s morning session questioning an exchange of funding provided for the IBA bond payment tied to Paulding’s film studio in Hiram, which they said should come first from the IBA to the county, rather than out of funding the county allow for the IBA in its budget.
But following last week’s morning session, Airport Director Blake Swafford explained that the bond payment was part of the arrangement provided for by the previous Board of Commissioners.
“Whether we pay the $275,000 and they put it back in, or we don’t pay it and they pay; at the end of the day it’s the same thing,” he said.
Swafford added that the relationship between the county and the IBA is set within the original bond agreement.
“[I agree that] we’re committed to pay them; however, when we committed to pay them, it was with the full backing and support of the Board of Commissioners, and that if we were not in a position to pay them they would. And we would have never entered into a bond without that...the bond documents clearly state--and every time we do a bond they state--that ultimately the responsibility falls on the county because they’re the taxing entity for our community, the IBA doesn’t have the ability to tax,” he said.