After two daylong mediation sessions and more than a year of disagreements between the Dalton (Georgia) City Council and the Whitfield County Commission, the two entities have agreed on how to pay for shared services and ensure the county and its taxpayers will continue to receive millions of dollars in state funds.
The service delivery strategy is a state-mandated agreement that lays out how local governments pay for shared services such as public health, sewer, fire, public housing, law enforcement, road work and dozens more things.
Without an agreed-upon strategy, the county could have lost its qualified local government status – a state designation that ensures municipalities don’t duplicate services – and potentially missed out on millions in state and federal grant funds.
As part of the resolution, Whitfield County will pay the city of Dalton 20% of its road-paving costs for projects in the county. The total, however, cannot exceed $200,000 a year.
Whitfield County also will put $125,000 for overhead operating costs of the Whitfield County Fire Department into the special tax district for the fire department. Right now, those costs come from the county’s general fund.