The elected officials of Sandy Springs, Ga., convened for their first-ever government meeting a minute after midnight in the rented office space that would become their city hall.
They had no tax revenue. No employees. Not even desks and chairs to call their own.
What they had on Dec. 1, 2005, was a handshake deal with an international management company to rent a ready-made city government. The following minutes -- and months -- showed that was enough.
"At that meeting, we had a fully operational city," said Oliver Porter, the white-haired Georgian who suggested the bold outsourcing plan and led the charge to carry it out in Sandy Springs.
More than five years after Sandy Springs incorporated, officials are still operating with a skeleton staff and a mammoth contract, gaining notoriety as the city that successfully outsourced almost everything. And Porter now says Frederick County should think about following suit.
In the report that Frederick County officials hired Porter to write, the consultant relied on his experience launching Sandy Springs and four other Georgia cities to predict commissioners could save hundreds of millions in tax dollars by letting private industry handle services now provided by more than 520 government employees.
Frederick County officials rejected the privatization plan submitted by Porter.
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