Leaders from the city of Dalton and Whitfield County have finally reached a proposal for a three-year extension of the Service Delivery Strategy (SDS) agreement which expired last year.
The Dalton City Council approved the measure by a unanimous 4-0 vote at Tuesday night’s meeting.
If formally approved by Whitfield County Board of Commissioners, the extended SDS agreement would run through the end of 2022. The Board of Commissioners is expected to vote on the agreement at their next meeting.
If enacted, the SDS extension would end the potential for litigation of the current deal. The extension also brings the governments of Whitfield County back into compliance with state laws requiring governments to negotiate a new SDS every 10 years and ends the possibility of sanctions from the state Department of Community Affairs.
As part of the resolution, Whitfield County would agree to pay the city of Dalton 20 percent of its road paving expenditures for projects in the county through in-kind paving work, capped at a limit of $200,000 each year. Additionally, Whitfield County would agree to place $125,000 for the overhead operating costs for the Whitfield County Fire Department into the special tax district for the WCFD instead of operating it from the county’s general fund. In turn, the city of Dalton has agreed to the proposed SPLOST intergovernmental agreement.