VALDOSTA — Lowndes County has won a legal battle involving the Service Delivery Strategy in the state’s highest court.

In an opinion released Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned lower court rulings that barred the county from suing the board members and a former commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs.

Under state law, cities and counties must negotiate a new service delivery agreement every 10 years, spelling out which services the governments will provide and how they will be funded. 

The SDS agreements are aimed at reducing duplication of services. Without such an agreement, the county, the City of Valdosta and the other cities in the county become ineligible for various state monies.

A fight has raged for the past four years between Lowndes County and its municipalities over duplication of services; the disagreement centers on which entity should provide water and sewer utilities to new businesses. 

Cities want autonomy to provide services to unincorporated areas without county approval, and the county believes this would result in residents or property owners living in unincorporated areas being added to a local city’s jurisdiction, according to past reporting in The Valdosta Daily Times.

In January 2017, Lowndes County sued the various cities within the county, as well as the Department of Community Affairs and its then-commissioner, Camila Knowles, arguing without an updated service delivery agreement, a previous deal drafted in 2008 remained in effect. The DCA’s board members were later added as defendants.

Knowles and the DCA board claimed sovereign immunity — the principle that state bodies and officers cannot be sued without the consent of the state — shielded them from the lawsuit.

Judges for local and appellate courts had previously ruled against the county in this matter but Lowndes County appealed to the highest court in the state.

Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled the lower courts had erred, drawing a line between state officials being sued in their official capacity vs. their individual capacity.

State officials can be sued without regard to sovereign immunity, the court said, if they are acting in their individual capacity by going beyond their legal authority and if the State of Georgia is not the real party being targeted by the lawsuit.

In the case of the county’s lawsuit, sovereign immunity does not apply, the high court said, sending the case back to the lower courts.

Terry Richards is senior reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times.