DALTON, Ga. — At separate meetings Monday, Whitfield County and Dalton adopted discrete resolutions to consider merging city and county road repair, maintenance and construction projects to cut costs and run more efficiently.
Mayor David Pennington touted the measure as a step to save taxpayers money. Still, Mr. Pennington acknowledged at the City Council meeting, “We’re ... mindful of the fact that this will affect individuals and families.”
Merging road services could cut 30 public works jobs, City Administrator Butch Sanders said.
“All of the details have to be worked out,” he said. “This is something totally new.”
The city and county initially considered similar resolutions with deadlines for creating a “city-county transportation agreement” and for restructuring staff. While the city passed a detailed resolution, county commissioners decided on a simplified version without a timetable.
“We’re looking at taking on a significant amount of work,” Commissioner Randy Waskul said. “We have got to do a little homework before I’m comfortable putting fine details in.”
One detail in the city version involved bidding out major road projects to private contractors.
This summer, Whitfield will start evaluating the costs of government road projects versus those bid out to private contractors, Commission Chairman Brian Anderson said. Private projects aren’t necessarily more efficient, he said.
“We’re not the ones that are prone to just buy that assumption” that government is always wasteful, he said.
Alderman Dick Lowrey, who has worked on the proposal for several months, said he would have liked the county to have settled on some kind of timeline.
“They, I think, watered it down a little bit,” Mr. Lowrey said. “I guess we’ll get together and work out the differences.”
Whitfield County and Dalton aren’t the only governments in the United States to merge services.
In recent years, local governments around the country have found ways to share common services, said Jim Philipps, a spokesman for the National Association of Counties.
“The great challenge for local government is trying to deliver essential services ... in a time of limited local resources and shrinking revenues.” Mr. Philipps said in an e-mail message.
