Cobb County, Mableton agree to short-term service-delivery strategy to offset tax and service shift

A staff member for Cobb County said the county and the newly formed city of Mableton agreed to a short-term Service Delivery Strategy (SDS) under which Mableton will reimburse the county more than $9,000,000 to offset a revenue shift while the county continues to provide police and public works services.

Georgia requires counties and cities to enter into SDS agreements to coordinate service delivery and to avoid double taxation, the staff member said. The short-term SDS with Mableton is intended as a bridge while the two governments negotiate a longer-term arrangement.

Under existing SDS agreements with Cobb's six legacy cities, which include Marietta and Smyrna, the county and those cities agreed to 10-year SDS arrangements. The staff member said the county currently pays its cities between $6.5 million and $11 million per year to balance overlapping services such as police and public works with countywide functions like courts, the jail and the sheriff.

Mableton differs from the legacy cities because it does not plan to operate its own police department or public works department and has asked Cobb County to continue providing those services, the staff member said. At the same time, Mableton assumed some property tax revenue that previously flowed into the county general fund; the short-term SDS and the more-than-$9 million reimbursement are meant to offset that revenue shift so city residents do not receive a net subsidy compared with residents of other cities in Cobb County.

The staff member also noted that local governments can manage revenue and service distribution by other means, including the creation of special service districts, but did not specify whether that option is being pursued for Mableton. The staff member did not specify exact dates for the short-term agreement beyond describing it as an interim arrangement while the county and Mableton "work toward a longer term agreement."