Mableton’s Money Report: Breaking Down the 2025 Audit in Plain English

The City of Mableton recently finished its yearly "financial physical." This independent audit tracks every dollar the city spent and saved through June 2025.

Here's a simple breakdown of the four things you need to know:

The Big Numbers

Your Property Tax Bill Stayed at Zero: The city did not send out any property tax bills to homeowners during this period. Instead, the city paid its bills using other sources of income, like taxes on insurance premiums, business licenses, fees from utility companies (gas/electric), and taxes from local hotels.

• Note: The City Council did recently create a "Public Safety Special Service District" to help pay Cobb County the $9.5 million needed for police this year. While the district exists, the city hasn't yet decided exactly how much it will cost individual residents (the "millage rate"). You can read the full blog post here for more details.

The City’s Cash and Reserves: The city has $8.3 million sitting in cash and investments. If we look at the "spare cash" that isn't already promised to a specific project (the "unassigned fund"), it equals 31.52% of what the city spends in a year.

More Money is Coming In: The city brought in a total of $9.39 million last year. That is a 42.93% jump compared to the year before. Notably, the money collected from local business taxes grew by 92%.

Spending is Up (As Planned): The city spent $9.95 million last year (compared to only $1.61 million the year before). This increase happened because the city is no longer a "startup"—it's now hiring staff for departments like Parks and Public Works and buying land for the community.

The City Owns More: Mableton now owns $4.14 million worth of property and equipment (after accounting for wear and tear). This includes new land for future parks that was bought using money from the 2024 Revenue Bonds.

The Auditors’ Verdict

The independent auditors (Mauldin & Jenkins, LLC) gave Mableton an "unmodified opinion." In plain English, that means they looked at the books and found the city’s records to be accurate and trustworthy.

However, they did point out three "Growing Pains" that the city needs to fix:

• Better Rulebooks Needed: The city doesn't have a formal, written manual that explains exactly how every financial transaction should be handled.

• Sharing the Workload: Right now, there aren't enough different people involved in handling the cash and recording entries. The auditors want to see these duties split up so that one person doesn't have too much control over the money.

• A Budget Overrun: The Hotel/Motel Tax Fund accidentally spent $307,525 more than what was originally planned in the budget.

City leadership agrees with these points and is currently writing those missing rulebooks and hiring more staff to make sure the money is handled with better oversight as Mableton grows.

To read the full 39-page auditors report, click here.

If you would like to stay up to date on other topics around Mableton, click here to subscribe for free.