Cobb County, new Mableton agree short-term service deal; city to reimburse county more than $9 million

Cobb County and the newly incorporated city of Mableton agreed to a short-term service delivery strategy (SDS) under which Mableton will reimburse the county more than $9 million to offset a shift in property-tax revenue while Cobb continues to provide police and public-works services to the new city, a meeting presentation said.

Service delivery strategy agreements are required by the state of Georgia to avoid duplicative taxation and to allocate which local government provides specific services. The county already has a 10-year SDS in place with its six legacy cities; that agreement directs Cobb to pay member cities between $6.5 million and $11 million annually to balance overlapping services such as local police and public works.

Unlike those legacy cities — including Marietta and Smyrna, which operate their own police and public-works departments — Mableton does not plan to establish its own police or public-works departments and asked Cobb to continue providing those services. At the same time, the newly formed city assumed some property-tax revenue that previously flowed into Cobb County’s general fund. Under the short-term SDS, Mableton will reimburse Cobb more than $9 million to offset that revenue shift while the two governments work toward a longer-term arrangement; the presentation did not specify the duration or the precise legal form of the short-term agreement.

Countywide services funded by property taxes include the courts, the jail and the sheriff’s office; the existing SDS arrangements aim to separate funding for those countywide services from the costs of locally provided police and public-works services. The county’s 10-year SDS with the six legacy cities was completed before Mableton incorporated; because Mableton plans to rely on county-provided police and DOT services while keeping some locally collected tax revenue, the short-term reimbursement was negotiated to maintain parity among taxpayers in the county.

The presentation noted that other mechanisms — such as creating special service districts — can also be used to allocate revenue and services, but it did not record a formal vote or the governing body action that approved the short-term Mableton agreement. The presentation also did not specify whether the reimbursement will be paid in a single lump sum or in installments, nor did it provide the legal citation for the state requirement beyond noting that Georgia law requires counties and cities to enter SDS agreements.

Officials and residents will likely continue negotiating a longer-term SDS that determines how Mableton’s ongoing service needs and tax contributions are balanced with other Cobb County cities. The presentation did not identify a timeline for those negotiations or any upcoming board votes to ratify a permanent agreement.