Five years ago, Sandy Springs became the state's sixth largest city overnight.
Just as quickly, the north Fulton County city became something of a national poster child for a new vision of local government: a single private company would provide most services except public safety.
As the sun sets on that original contract with CH2M Hill, the privatization landscape has shifted. This time Dunwoody, not its bigger neighbor to the west, is leading the way.
Instead of the original lump-sum deal, both cities are gearing up to accept new bids to run their services from as many companies as want to vie for the work.
Dozens of companies are expected to bid to help run Sandy Springs, whose contract with CH2M Hill expires June 30, and Dunwoody, which has until Dec. 31 before its contracts with three private companies end.
"The point of privatizing was always more competition," Dunwoody City Manager Warren Hutmacher said. "We're always learning, from our experiences and each other, how to get there."
The idea of government acting as a contract administrator to oversee private companies doing such work as hauling trash or reviewing zoning documents - typically called outsourcing for existing jurisdictions and privatization for new ones - has gripped metro Atlanta spasmodically for years.
A decade ago, Atlanta contracted out its water service, an ancient system in need of major repair. But the deal didn't list goals or measurements for the city to monitor. The experiment was such a failure that Mayor Shirley Franklin brought the service back in-house about four years later.
"That was an expensive mistake with an important lesson," said Gregory Streib, a public policy professor at Georgia State University. "You can save money by contracting, but you might not. It depends on how smart you are in your shopping."
As with all other shopping, it doesn't hurt to have some extra cash on hand in case you do make a mistake. The single-provider system has worked, for the most part, in Sandy Springs because it is the largest of the new cities. It's also the one with the biggest budget.
The city spends less than a third of its $83 million budget on its deal with CH2M Hill. That $24.1 million is $2 million less than last fiscal year's contract, when the city also had a $20 million surplus it spent to build sidewalks and pave roads in the middle of a recession.
"We remain 100 percent committed to the outsourcing model," City Manager John McDonough said. "We've just needed to tweak it to make it more responsive to our needs as we go forward."
Chattahoochee and Milton, significantly smaller cities with less cash on hand, had to do more than tweak. Both cities have canceled their contracts and returned to more traditional government setups, citing financial pressures.
Johns Creek, too, has backpedaled. It slashed its deal with CH2M Hill from $17 million to $5 million.
It is not alone.
More than half the jurisdictions that returned services in-house from private companies cited cost as the main issue, according to a 2007 survey by the International City/County Management Association.
"There is a kind of sticker shock when there are cost overruns or a lump sum that doesn't allow accounting for detail of what you're paying for," said Shar Habibi, head of the resource center at In the Public Interest, a nonprofit agency that monitors privatization efforts.
Georgia's newest city, Dunwoody, may have solved that problem by contracting with different companies to run different departments.
The city figures that move saved at least $2 million over a contract with just one company. It also created more transparency by letting the city sign direct deals with subcontractors.
That means Dunwoody, alone among its new city neighbors, knows how much it costs to fill a pothole or pave a road. It has those details because it has that sort of information in each of the subcontractor deals.
Sandy Springs plans to copy that structure. In addition to more transparency and accountability, city leaders said the change will allow for better long-term planning and budgeting.
"We have a very reform-minded way of running municipal government, and there is absolutely no reason we shouldn't continue to reform," said Gabriel Sterling, a city resident and political consultant. "I think you always have to re-examine what you're doing and how it can get better."
That mindset could translate into more privatization experiments among more established and older communities.
Gwinnett County has dipped its toes into the privatization pool in the past few years. Outsourcing its emergency medical services billing and property appraisal jobs is projected to save more than $500,000 a year - minor dents in an annual budget of more than $1 billion.
Still, privatization supporters such as the Reason Foundation and watchdogs such as In the Public Interest agree the model is here to stay.
Knowing that the system can be modified could lead to improvements in the new contracts that make other jurisdictions take notice. Only time will tell, said Katherine Willoughby, a public policy professor at Georgia State.
"Savvy governments will investigate all options - new revenues, changed/cut expenditures, outsourcing, debt options and interlocal agreements - for getting work done," she said.
