Cities Share Service Success

December 14, 2020

GMA knows a thing or two about saving and generating money for its valued member cities with years of experience and numerous services. City officials shared with GMA what they enjoy most about their services and how GMA has improved their cities.

Home Depot Government Solution: GMA has worked with Home Depot’s government leadership team to provide exclusive discounts and volume pricing for Georgia cities. Additionally, cities receive an annual rebate of 3% with no minimum spending required and volume pricing on major purchases of $1,000 or more.

“The online shopping at Home Depot is convenient and allows the city to take advantage of extra savings. We also like the rebate check we receive from all purchases made within the year. It’s a win-win!” _ Lisa Taylor, Bainbridge Admin Services Director

GovDeals: GovDeals is an e-commerce marketplace of liquidity services that enables buyers and sellers to conduct business in an efficient, automated environment offering over 500 product categories from over 200 countries and territories.

“GovDeals gave us the opportunity to advertise property to a larger audience. The city had first requested sealed bids through the local newspaper and received two bids from the area. Council did not accept the bid and in-turn used GovDeals as an alternative to hopefully generate a much larger offer for the property. As it turns out, it was well worth it!” – Becky Chronic, Union Point Clerk Treasurer

Alcohol Excise Tax Recovery: GMA’s Alcoholic Beverage Excise Tax Compliance service not only helps cities identify and collect underpaid excise taxes, but it ensures that wholesalers and retailers stay compliant. This service also includes re- sources for both city employees and retail pouring licensees.

“I’m so glad the city performed the audit. The process was educational for both city staff and local merchants, and we increased our revenues too.” – Melissa Forrester, Canton Finance Director

Telecommunications and Right-of-Way Management: This GMA program provides participants with a wide range of technical assistance including negotiating water tank tower leases and land leases with telecommunications companies and assisting with processing applications from small cell antenna companies to use the city’s right of way.

“Greg and Ryan Fender, with Local Government Services, LLC, have been outstanding to work with and their services have helped the city protect our rights of ways and ensure we receive fair compensation for use of our facilities by telecommunication providers. In addition to the approximate $20,000 we receive annually for fiber infrastructure located in our rights of ways, in July 2020 Local Government Services assisted the city in renegotiating a contract with T-Mobile for cellular service infrastructure co-located on one of our water storage tanks. The new contract, which extends through 2042, provides the city with an immediate $20,000 annual increase in revenue and a total revenue of $1.822M from a 3% annual escalator.” -Charles Penny, Statesboro City Manager

Debt Collection: Get assistance in collecting outstanding utility bills, court fines and fees, parking tickets, ambulance fees or other debt exclusive to cities through this GMA service. This service also improves cities’ overall debt collection processes now and in the future.

“Commerce has used GMA’s Debt Collection since the beginning. Penn Credit has the resources to find and collect outstanding ac- counts. We would never be able to do what this service provides. It’s a great service to the city.” – Lynn Anthony, Commerce Billing Coordinator

Hotel/Motel Tax Recovery: GMA will help establish a compliance ethic with your hotel/motel operators through review and analysis of returns, education programs with operators and by ensuring the city’s ordinance is current and enforceable. “Even for a small city, the hotel motel Excise Tax Recovery and Management Service has proved to be very beneficial in making sure the city receives the tax revenue it should be receiving. It also helps to know that someone is reviewing it, which frees up city staff to do other jobs. We are very pleased with the service.” – Paul Hawkins, Flemington Mayor

In addition to these services, GMA also offers its Delinquent Insurance License Collection Program. This program annually collects delinquent and escaped license fees due from insurance companies to member cities. Cities can also benefit from GMA’s Property Damage Revenue Recovery service where GMA, in partnership with Peachtree Recovery, track down the money due to cities by auto accident damage and recover revenue for transportation maintenance budget; and the U.S. Communities service, which allows purchasing of quality products and services through competitively solicited contracts from government purchasing alliances.

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