Something different

I was recently told about the town of Sandy Springs in Georgia USA. It sounded too far fetched to be true so I set about checking. There is plenty of information available on Sandy Springs including an eight minute video ‘The story of Sandy Springs Georgia’ .

It may look much like many other towns in America with a population of around ninety thousand. It has beautiful parks, good roads, and nice places to live. But there’s one thing that separates this town from every other town: Sandy Springs privatized almost everything.
Sandy Springs, at first glance, appears to be run just like other similarly sized cities, with a council-manager form of government. However, most with of the city services are performed in a public-private partnership. All but the most essential services are outsourced to private contractors. Sandy Springs is believed to be the first American city to outsource its services to such a great extent.

In 2005, Sandy Springs outsourced almost all functions of the government to a single company, which runs the town. That company is in charge of running all the vital functions of government, from the running the parks, to paving the roads.

The town is running very efficiently, with zero backlogs in permit re
quests. The town has a 24/7 non-automated customer service hotline which fields about 6,000 calls per month.
When the project first started, the University of Georgia estimated that the city would need 828 employees. But the efficiencies introduced by the private management has resulted in requiring a workforce of just 471 people. The town actually only has eight full-time public employees, a mayor and six councillors.

Because of this efficiency, Sandy Springs is generating large annual surpluses. (They have no unfunded liabilities). This has given the town lots of extra cash to work with. The city, as a matter of policy, sets aside 25% of revenues into a reserve during each budget planning cycle.

Capital improvements have been a major focus during their first eight years, with more than $185 million invested in capital infrastructure. This has lead to lots of improvements around the town. The city has repaved 235 kilometers of streets, renewed 874 storm water pipes, and built 51 kilometers of new footpaths.
It sometimes pays to make a bold move.