Four years after launching the state’s most privatized government, Sandy Springs is considering some changes to the concept.
This time the north Fulton County city is not looking at a blank canvas. Other new cities have since formed and put their own mark on how to outsource services.
Sandy Springs has more than a year to explore its options, and few expect it will dump the privatization model going forward. But it could make significant changes, such as contracting with several firms for different services rather than relying on one to handle everything.
Chattahoochee Hills and Milton tried the Sandy Springs model of contracting with just one firm but backed out of the deals, citing financial pressures.
Neighboring Dunwoody says it saved taxpayers $2 million by finding three, not one, companies to run its city.
“The neat thing about the whole experience is you find out what works and what doesn’t and you adjust,” said Amy Henderson, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Municipal Association. “And the winners in the end are the taxpayers, who aren’t paying for inefficiency.”
A desire to get local services up and running quickly prompted Sandy Springs in 2006 to contract with Colorado-based CH2M Hill to provide daily services. The city incorporated a year earlier, largely because of dissatisfaction with services provided by Fulton County.
Most Georgia cities ink some sort of outsourcing deals, usually for specific services such as garbage collection or landscaping, according to municipal association studies.
Under its $26 million contract with Sandy Springs, though, CH2M Hill provides services such as public works, recreation and planning to the nearly 100,000 residents of Sandy Springs.
The only city employees are public safety workers and top administrators.
The model has generated little controversy. The only recent criticism of the contract was directed at Mayor Eva Galambos, an outspoken proponent of the model, during last year’s mayoral race.
But Galambos captured 84 percent of the vote in the four-way race, effectively quieting any question of whether the city would continue with privatization.
“If you look at it logically, this system works for us,” said Councilman Tibby DeJulio, who is leading the preparation of a new bid. “What we need to do is refine the system to work better.”
For example, DeJulio admits the city ended up with delays on some projects because the initial contract did not spell out how to handle change orders, or differences in pricing or staffing for specific projects.
When processing 500 boxes of old Fulton County zoning records, that meant the city and CH2M Hill had no process on how to hire temporary workers to handle the work, or what they should have been paid.
Another question likely to come up will be whether the city could carve out certain departments and find other companies to handle them.
That’s what Dunwoody did for its 40,000 residents: contract with one company to handle finance and administration, another for public works and a third for planning and zoning.
CH2M Hill had proposed subcontracting for those same services, so the plan cut out the middleman and saved millions, said City Manager Warren Hutmacher.
“By opening up the competition, we were able to draw better prices and draw in specialty firms,” Hutmacher said. “We were able to be innovative with new ideas, because of what had already been done.”
Sandy Springs plans two public meetings, including one next week, to gather citizen input on what has worked and what needs improvement. Citizens and business owners can also fill out a survey online.
After that, the city council will add its ideas to what belongs in the request for proposals. That bid is expected to go out this summer. The city’s current contract expires in 2011.
The public input meetings will be held before the City Council meetings on March 16 and April 20. The meetings begin at 6 p.m.at City Hall, 7840 Roswell Road.
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