December 1st, a vision
took reality \ue001or a large group o\ue001 citizens in
Sandy Springs, Georgia. A\ue001ter \ue000ghting Ful-
ton County \ue001or over 30 years, their dream
became a reality and Sandy Springs was
o\ue001\ue000cially an incorporated city\u2014the \ue000rst new
city in Georgia in 50 years.

Fed up with high taxes and poor ser-
vice delivery, residents o\ue001 Georgia\u2019s Fulton
County voted in 2005 to incorporate the city
o\ue001 Sandy Springs, earning 94.6 percent o\ue001 the
vote. What makes Sandy Springs interesting
however, is that instead o\ue001 creating a new mu-
nicipal bureaucracy, the city opted to contract
out nearly all government services.

We have harnessed the energy o\ue000 the pri-
vate sector to organize the major \ue000unctions
o\ue000 city government instead o\ue000 assembling our
own bureaucracy. This we have done be-
cause we are convinced that the competitive
model is what has made America so success-
\ue000ul. And we are here to demonstrate that
this same competitive model will lead to an
e\ue000fcient and e\ue000\ue000ective local government.

Once they wrestled control away, the
new city had a unique opportunity to rede-
\ue000ne how their municipal government should
look, \ue001unction, and interact with citizens.
City leaders started with a blank slate,
enabling them to ask the \ue001undamental ques-
tions about what role government should

Taking a page \ue001rom management guru
Peter Drucker, every \u201ctraditional\u201d service or
\ue001unction needed to prove its worthiness and
proper role and place within government.

C.\ue000State\ue000Bureaucracy\ue000Update
D.\ue000State\ue000Revenue\ue000Boom\ue000Paves\ue000Way\ue000for\ue000Tax\ue000Cuts
E.\ue000Surveying\ue000the\ue000Battleground\ue000on\ue000Tax\ue000and\ue000Expenditure\ue000Limits\ue000(TELs)

Absent any program history, bias or general
government inertia, city o\ue001\ue000cials were able
to apply Drucker\u2019s test \ue001or business, \u201ci\ue001 we
weren\u2019t doing this yesterday, would we do
it today,\u201d to the operation o\ue001 municipal
government.

Ultimately o\ue001\ue000cials had to decide wheth-
er to \u201cmake or buy\u201d public services. Ulti-
mately they decided to \u201cbuy\u201d most services
\ue001rom the private sector. A contract was
signed with CH2M-Hill to oversee and man-
age the day-to-day operations o\ue001 the city.
The contract, worth $32 million, was nearly
hal\ue001 what the city traditionally was charged
in taxes by Fulton County (approximately
$60 million). Oliver Porter, the chairman o\ue001
the commission set up to establish the city
said \u201cthat\u2019s more service \ue001or less cost than
anything we could have hoped \ue001or.\u201d

With a \ue001ocus on e\ue001\ue000ciency, but more
importantly e\ue001\ue001ectiveness o\ue001 public service,
Sandy Springs has embraced the power o\ue001
competition to determine how services will
be provided.

The city does plan to establish its own
police \ue001orce and possibly a \ue000re department
(although they currently contract with the
county); even with these additional costs
Sandy Springs is saving its citizens millions
o\ue001 dollars, upwards o\ue001 30 percent in the \ue000rst
year alone.

Sandy Springs was the \ue000rst domino to \ue001all, and is quickly becoming a model city \ue001or both cost and quality o\ue001 services. In a February 13, 2006 editorial in theAtlanta

speaker pro tem o\ue001 the Georgia State House,
emphasizes that new cities like Sandy
Springs are more responsive to the needs o\ue001
constituents.

Seeing the wave, Burkhalter sponsored
legislation this year that would allow a
re\ue001erendum to incorporate Johns Creek in
Fulton County. Additional legislation was
passed \ue001or the creation o\ue001 Milton, Chatta-
hoochee Hill County and South Fulton as
well. Two additional proposals, \ue001or the new
cities o\ue001 Dunwoody and Sea Island, \ue001ailed to
garner legislative support this year.

Residents o\ue001 Johns Creek and Milton
will vote on cityhood in July, and would
hold \ue000rst elections in November. Re\ue001er-
endums on the two cities proposed in the
south, will be on the ballot in summer 2007.

Mike Bodker, the chairman o\ue001 the
Northeast Fulton County Study Commis-
sion heading up the e\ue001\ue001ort \ue001or the new city
o\ue001 Johns Creek, suggests that the new city
will likely \ue001ollow Sandy Springs\u2019 model and
\u201cuse privatization and partnering to use tax
dollars more e\ue001\ue001ectively.\u201d The commission
wants to identi\ue001y and use innovative and
competitive solutions, while making its gov-
ernment more responsible, transparent, and
accountable to taxpayers.

In addition to these named cities several
other communities are reviewing their op-
tions. The Carl Vinson Institute o\ue001 Govern-
ment at the University o\ue001 Georgia is cur-
rently undertaking \ue001easibility studies \ue001or a
number o\ue001 incorporation candidates includ-
ing Kennesaw, Peachtree City, and Duluth.

All o\ue001 this activity is very reminiscent
o\ue001 the city o\ue001 Lakewood, Cali\ue001ornia and
what became known as the \u201cLakewood
Plan.\u201d Incorporated 51 years ago, the city o\ue001
Lakewood used an innovative and cost-e\ue001-
\ue001ective strategy to contract \ue001or city services.
The City Council set local policy, per\ue001ormed
community planning tasks and set the an-
nual budget. However, the services were
provided through a contractual arrangement
with private companies and neighboring
communities. A similar approach is used in
Sandy Springs and elsewhere.

As with Sandy Springs in Georgia,
Lakewood\u2019s incorporation sprung a wave
that led to the creation o\ue001 some three dozen
\u201ccontract cities\u201d in Cali\ue001ornia.

Faced with declining revenues and ever
increasing costs, the Hamilton County
(Ohio) Board o\ue001 County Commissioners
adopted a resolution establishing a citi-
zen-led task \ue001orce charged with developing
recommendations on cost-saving initiatives
through managed competition.

The task \ue001orce, called the Hamilton
County Competition and E\ue001\ue000ciency Com-
mittee (CEC) was charged with six initial
tasks:

1. Recommend cost-saving initiatives
though managed competition,
service consolidations and program
eliminations.

2. Review county services with an eye
toward cost savings through managed
competition.

The third task was proving to be most
di\ue001\ue000cult. Task \ue001orce members had a good
idea o\ue001 services that could be subjected to
competition and they certainly knew that
savings could be \ue001ound, however, there was
not any policy or guidelines \ue001or undertaking
an initiative like this.

CEC chair, Tony Condia, called in Rea-
son Foundation sta\ue001\ue001 to assist in the develop-
ment o\ue001 their overarching policy and process
that would be used to manage initiatives.
Over several months o\ue001 collaboration, the
CEC agreed on a modi\ue000ed version o\ue001 the
Florida GATE Management Process (see
discussion in last year\u2019s APR: www.reason.

chosen because it was considered cutting
edge with an eye toward transparency and
accountability o\ue001 an initiative. The per\ue001or-
mance-based model was \ue000rst adopted by the
Governor\u2019s Center \ue001or E\ue001\ue000cient Government
in Florida. It has served as the starting point
\ue001or several competition e\ue001\ue001orts throughout
the country.

Hamilton County has not \ue001ormally
adopted the guidelines as policy, but rather,
will use them administratively in order
to amend on the fy and make changes as
it learns \ue001rom experience. The CEC will
continue to oversee the development o\ue001 new
guidelines and make any amendments or
changes to the policy.

With an initial goal o\ue001 \ue000nding $25 mil-
lion in immediate savings, the CEC is under-
taking several initiatives: