City of Winder v. Barrow County

Barrow County and the City of Winder could not agree on a new service delivery strategy, the plan required by Georgia law for sharing and funding local services between a county and its cities. After mediation resolved most disputes, two issues went to court: who should pay for maintaining county roads in unincorporated areas, and whether the county could challenge the city's water rates for customers outside city limits as an illegal tax. A superior court and the Court of Appeals of Georgia both sided with the county, ruling that road costs should fall on whoever uses the roads, and that a challenge to the water rates as an illegal tax and to the city's transfer of water profits could be decided in this same proceeding. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed on both points. It held that determining who mainly benefits from road maintenance requires weighing all the circumstances, not a single factor, and that the illegal-tax and profit-transfer claims fall outside what this special dispute process can decide.

Whether county road maintenance is primarily for the benefit of the unincorporated area depends on the totality of the circumstances, including but not limited to location and usage, and must be decided after an evidentiary hearing rather than as a matter of law. Additionally, funding for services benefiting the unincorporated area must come from ad valorem property taxes, insurance premium taxes, non-tax assessments, or user fees within a special service district, and a proceeding under the Act's dispute resolution provision cannot be used to decide whether water rates are an illegal tax or whether profits may be moved to the city's general fund.

The decision affects how counties and cities across Georgia fund road maintenance and other shared services, requiring case-by-case evidentiary hearings instead of simple rules. It also limits what disputes local governments can resolve through the Act's mediation and court process, pushing tax-related claims into separate lawsuits.

Judgment reversed and case remanded

1. The court read the Services Delivery Strategy Act's road-funding provision (O.C.G.A. § 36-70-24(3)(A)) using the ordinary meaning of 'primarily' (for the most part, chiefly) and 'benefit' (advantage or gain) at the time the law was written, concluding the statute asks who chiefly gains from a service, not simply who is allowed to use it.
2. Applying normal grammar rules, the court found that the phrase 'who receive the service' at the end of the sentence does not automatically define who 'primarily benefits,' rejecting the county's argument that access or usage alone settles the question as a matter of law.
3. Because the statute's wording is not ambiguous, the court declined to defer to a nonbinding state guidebook that suggested road maintenance never benefits the unincorporated area simply because roads are open to everyone.
4. On funding sources (O.C.G.A. § 36-70-24(3)(B)), the court used dictionary definitions from the time of enactment and a comparison with the Georgia Constitution's Special Districts Paragraph to conclude 'property taxes' means only ad valorem property taxes and 'assessments' means special charges other than taxes or fees, so counties cannot fund unincorporated-area services with just any tax or charge.
5. On the water-rate dispute, the court examined the Act's structure and concluded that claims about whether water rates amount to an illegal tax, or whether profits can be shifted to a city's general fund, are not among the items a service delivery strategy must address, so they fall outside the special court proceeding created for resolving service delivery disagreements.

• service delivery strategy act
• road maintenance funding
• water rate dispute
• Barrow County
• City of Winder