Georgia bill could dissolve City of Hiram amid financial, political tensions

The City of Hiram faces dissolution as a state Senator pushes a bill before the close of session.

When the Georgia legislative session started, state Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, made posts on Facebook regarding the financial challenges of the city that Councilman Garnet Morris said were ill-informed.

“I thought that his approach in terms of calling out some of the financial challenges of the city was a little, how shall I say, pointed at Hiram while ignoring some of the other jurisdictions in the surrounding area who have similar financial positions to us, and so why Hiram, you know, and why now?” he said.

Two reasons have been floated as to why the attention is on Hiram, Morris said. The first is that the previous council passed two residential developments without the approval of Anavitarte or the community. The second is that the election in 2025 changed the dynamics of the city council.

“And so now, me taking that seat has now made the council a majority-minority council, right, which is the first time that that’s happened in the history of the city of Hiram,” Morris said. “And so some are thinking that because of that, that now has triggered the powers that be to want to dissolve the city.”

If Senate Bill 630 passes, the city of Hiram will essentially be dissolved.

Isabel Otero, the Georgia policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that the local government would be dissolved and all of its assets and responsibilities would be transferred to Paulding County.

“There’s new tax exposure. They don’t get a vote on any of this, and it sort of just dissolves their local government and it reduces their political power,” she said.

The SPLC is advocating for the city and Paulding County to have a chance to vote on whether the city should be dissolved.

Like many other cities in the state, Hiram does have a deficit, Otero said. The city does not charge property taxes, and they spend more on public safety and services to accommodate new businesses coming to the city. 

“It is difficult not to sort of look at this through the lens of racial justice and wonder why are we sort of targeting these kinds of cities when there are so many cities across the state that have also failed to submit audits that are also having financial trouble,” she said.

The bill is on the local consent agenda, meaning it doesn’t have to go through the same processes as a normal bill. The assumption is that the bill has been agreed upon by the local governments and their representatives in the legislature, Otero said.

“We know that some of what state legislators are concerned about are just things that happen in local government that the people of that local government should decide how to fix. It shouldn’t sort of be imposed on them.,” Otero said.