As costs become a bigger problem for local governments in a tough economy, consolidation
of city and county governments has become a recent trend, local government expert Harry Hayes presented to a journalism class at the University of Georgia Monday morning.

Although Athens-Clarke
County consolidated in 1991 due to a lengthy grassroots effort from local
citizens, consolidation is hard to get passed “because Georgia is not one of
the states with citizen initiatives” and “elected
officials are faced with the opportunity to lose their job if people vote for
consolidation," Hayes explained.
Nevertheless, Hayes pointed to cities and counties like Macon-Bibb, Dalton-Whitfield and Milledgeville-Baldwin, who are all making efforts to consolidate their governments.
Although Hayes has no way to rate the success of consolidation efforts, he knows of no movement in any area that has consolidated governments where
they are trying to reverse its effect.
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