Which bill to pay first — thousands of dollars to the county landfill? More to Georgia Power or Coastal Electric? Insurance? Sewer?
Last winter, Walthourville Mayor Sarah B. Hayes sat at the conference table with City Clerk Shana Moss, agonizing how to prioritize the debts facing their town of 4,000.
Founded by strongwilled local women wanting independence from unhelpful Liberty County leaders, Wathourvile had thrived on one source of revenue: an independent water system. The city had a budget surplus in 2017. But after Covid rocked the country and the economy, its finances went off the rails.
The city passed an unbalanced budget with no funding mechanism in 2023, and owed years of mandatory state financial audits and reports. Monthly cash flow didn’t cover bills. Meanwhile, others in the county, she was told, were hoping to annex Walthourville. City council members bickered with Hayes, blaming her for the city’s woes.
The depth of Walthourville’s financial problems mirrors those of hundreds of rural Georgia towns and the state’s rural counties. Most struggle with shrinking populations and ways to pay for vital services that authorities must provide to retain their charter.
Despite the hurdles, by the end of 2025, Hayes, a retired Army drill sergeant, had put her town on the path to financial solvency. Her victory amid small town rivalries illustrates how valuable strong public servants are to the fabric of Georgia communities.
“The military taught me organizational skills, how to work with people from all races and walks of life, and the concept of teamwork,” Hayes said. “And always do what is ethically and morally correct.”
An outsider ascends to power
Walthourville is a quiet town of modest single-family and mobile homes that has become a draw for retirees from Fort Stewart. The CSX railroad track runs past City Hall and the old train depot. Other than the train horn, nights are mostly quiet.
City leaders tout its economic potential: A bypass road 20 years in the making is expected to spark new mixed-used developments and bring new sales and property taxes.
Yet one of Walthourville’s assets is sometimes its Achilles heel. Five miles from Hinesville, its social and political life are intricately entwined with the rest of Liberty County, and strong family and social ties cross pollinate city and county politics.
For example: Walthourville’s former mayor Larry Baker, who held that seat for four years after 12 years as councilman, served alongside his father, James Hendry, and his uncle, Charlie Anderson. Baker’s grandfather was former councilman, mayor, and civil rights pioneer Henry Frasier, Sr., uncle of Liberty County Commissioner Justin Frasier.
Such relationships are not uncommon in rural Georgia. At their best, family ties can offer closeness that can help build up a community. At their worst, they can work to shut out newcomers and new ideas.
Hayes, who is devoted to her church and the local seniors group, didn’t see her outsider status as a problem in 2011 when she ran for public office as another way to serve her adopted community. She won Baker’s vacated seat, served one term, lost reelection, then won again in 2019. When Covid struck, Hayes lost 11 relatives to the deadly virus. Yet she soldiered on.
For a brief time, city finances were buoyant — Walthourville received millions in federal funds to upgrade public safety and the water system.
But financial oversight slipped. The city’s former accountant, Matthew Caines, resigned after the council failed for four months to approve his pay. State-mandated financial audits for 2021, 2022, and 2023 were left unfinished. Yet the council also approved spending decisions that exacerbated cash flow problems.
In 2022, Baker appointed Hayes mayor pro tem. That role put her into conflict with him and other long-term council members, especially when Hayes started questioning city spending, including a new city vehicle for Baker.
Hayes complained that the council was prioritizing personal needs over public ones: “The city cannot move forward with this infighting. One member doesn’t like this member; therefore, they will not support what could be good for the city. That isn’t fair to citizens.”
The council also balked at the unpopular task of discussing whether to levy the city’s first property tax. Walthourville needed a major sustainable revenue source. The county was set to collect almost $1 million annually on part of a large residential development inside the city limits straddling the Liberty-Long county line. Walthourville couldn’t afford to leave that kind of money on the table.
Such shortsightedness prompted Hayes to run for mayor in 2023 against Baker and win with a commanding 55% of the vote. The city, she thought, needed to make tough choices to stay solvent — a position backed by the city’s accountant.
Caines, at the end of 2023, warned the city lacked enough revenue to cover municipal salaries and public safety. The only solution, he said, was a millage rate — the formula to calculate property taxes — and a fee for fire services. A Georgia Municipal Association consultant agreed.
Yet Baker’s loss appeared to sharpen opposition to Hayes’ ideas among the former mayor’s relatives and allies.
Under fire
Georgia cities must provide at least three services like public safety, sanitation, and water to keep their charter.
As mayor, Hayes was one of four elected officials authorized to sign checks. In her first year in office, she gained in-depth knowledge of the city’s debts that threatened her ability to pay for city services.
One constant drain was a monthly loan payment of $20,000 to the U.S. Department of Agriculture dating back to 2011.
Without reliable city budgets to consult, Hayes and Moss tried to manage. City staff spent hours on the phone, negotiating payment arrangements from grumpy creditors, begging for goodwill and borrowing time.
As early as October 2023, Hayes said she wasn’t opposed to a millage rate but that citizens must be afforded the chance to give their input at public meetings.
Council members agreed during their first work session to expedite millage rate hearings. Boston and Dodd also advocated privatizing city services. But the inability to pay for those services could put the city charter in peril if Walthourville were unable to bring and keep its bills current.
Instead of collaboration, Hayes faced whisper campaigns. Council members blamed her, alleging she had kept them in the dark about the financial woes. City records, however, show that council members knew, or should have known, the extent of the problems.
Two elected officials must sign every check: the mayor and one councilmember. Three councilmembers — Boston, Bridgette Kelly, and Robert Dodd — are authorized co-signers, a robust oversight for spending.
With financial problems mounting, Hayes perceived that some on council might have an ulterior motive against saving the town. Hinesville, she came to believe, wanted Walthourville to go bankrupt so it could annex the smaller city for its own gain.
Hayes appealed to civic pride when financial common sense had failed.
“I had a public official come to me and say, ‘I need to talk to you about annexing.’ I said, ‘You talking about Walthourville, it’s gonna be a short conversation. That ain’t happening.’” she told council members. “And I know y’all feel the same way.”
Rather than create camaraderie, Hayes’ actions spurred deeper conflict. Boston and Councilmember Patrick Underwood later told The Current GA they felt Hayes talked down to them.
Underwood began openly disrespecting Hayes during council meetings, sometimes even shouting her down.
Hayes kept to her strategy of taking the high road. “I learned you can’t approach everything the way a drill sergeant would,” she told The Current GA.
Through 2024, council arguments ranged from petty to monumental. For example, the council decided, over Hayes’ objection, for taxpayers to fund their hotel rooms in Savannah for annual training.
The council then stopped attending pre-meeting work sessions, the time when policy discussions occur.
Boston, who ran for office on “growth and change,” kept pushing to privatize city services like sanitation, as well as ending employee health insurance coverage. That, he said, would erase the city’s growing annual deficit for basic operating expenses.
Boston had an ally in Dodd, and contacted two companies, Atlantic Waste Services and ABC Waste of Atlanta, ahead of any city council decision. To cover the city’s debts to the landfill, he suggested selling the city’s recently-purchased $250,000 garbage truck.
In August 2024, the city held a public hearing for citizens to ask about Boston’s proposal to privatize sanitation services.
Some residents accused city officials of hiding information about the plan from the public — and Hayes lost momentum. Council members approved Boston’s idea, ignoring advice from the city accountant that it wouldn’t save money.
Cash flow woes
At the end of 2024, Hayes’ financial juggling act crashed. At a meeting to approve the 2025 budget, Hayes told the council a sewer emergency had put the city at risk of massive fines. The city’s private contractor refused to fix the problem because of a delinquent payment. Hayes said she transferred $300,000 from the city’s special transportation fund called TSPLOST to its water fund.
“I did not want the sewer backed up into citizens’ homes,” Hayes told the council.
The episode reflected a years-long practice by which city officials moved cash from dedicated budgets to pay bills for other services, Hayes said.
Although City Attorney Luke Moses told the council he was “certain” the transfer was legal, the council was skittish. They refused to pass the budget on time until Moses suggested they do so on the condition of amending it after the first of the year.
Begrudgingly, the council passed the budget, on time. At its next meeting, the council moved the money back to TSPLOST.
Another crisis erupted in the summer of 2025.
Atlantic Waste, the private sanitation contractor, demanded immediate payment of $116,086.80 in unpaid invoices within the week or it would cut all service to the city.
Hayes pleaded with council members to participate in a special-called meeting to handle the crisis. “You know our funds situation,” she wrote. “Not enough revenue to pay everything.”
Instead, three council members used the fragile financial situation as further ammunition against Hayes, accusing her again of financial mismanagement.
The city attorney has told The Current GA that, while Hayes’ maneuvers are not best practice, moving money between city funds in such a situation is not illegal.
News of the garbage crisis spread quickly, and angry residents mobbed the Aug. 22 council meeting. Minutes before it started, Hayes ensured pickup services by paying $38,000 of the outstanding bill.
But Hayes delivered other bad news: The city had not paid its portion of Liberty Transit bus service for two years and thus owed Hinesville over $42,000.
This sent the council over the edge.
The council censured Hayes at the August 25, 2025, council meeting. Boston accused Hayes of prioritizing city staff payroll over garbage pickup residents had paid for.
Underwood called for Hayes to resign: “You have not demonstrated transparency with the city council. As a mayor, you are expected to lead and manage day-to-day operations. But your actions continue to show a lack of accountability.”
Hayes said she was trying to be a good financial steward, while council members spread “lies and half truths” about her.
“I don’t understand all this hate,” she said. “I haven’t done anything to anybody”
Over the next few weeks, Hayes kept untangling the red tape and mopping up the red ink.
Meanwhile, political backlash against Hayes continued.
During the Oct. 14 council meeting, Kelly called a town hall meeting, in response to what she said were “many” citizens’ questions about the millage rate and fire fee.
Only three residents showed up, along with Kelly, Lovette, Boston, Underwood, and the fire chief.
Afterward, the four council members told The Current that their driving motivation to oppose the mayor was rooted in personal dislike.
“I think it’s personality,” Lovette said,
“I was going to say it was control,” Kelly added.
Boston agreed. “Yeah, definitely control.”
The bottom line for Kelly: “She’s not from here.”
But through the political theatrics, financial realities finally started to sink in.
The city’s new accountant, Eon van Wyk, told the council that while the fund transfers weren’t absolutely orthodox, he had not found any misuse of resources or fraud. “We have not come across any suspicious payments,” he said.
By November, Hayes seemed to have hit on an argument that would hold water with residents and her council members. The 12-mil tax rate, she said, could be a temporary measure until the city could get its financial house in order.
She told one citizen at the final budget hearing, “We have very high hopes for the future that these things will be taken care of, and with the income coming in we can pay down these bills, and hopefully roll back the millage rate. So don’t give up on us.”
On Nov. 11, Hayes called for a vote on the proposal to enact a 12-mil property tax measure, which is projected to raise just over $1 million.
The council was silent for several seconds until Moses prompted them for a motion.
Underwood took a gulp from a bottle of water and made the proposal.
“Is there a second?” Hayes asked.
After a long pause, Boston said, “Second,” then scooted his chair forward.
Hayes called for the vote. Silently, Boston, Kelly, Dodd, and Underwood raised their hands.
Lovette did not reply when asked what her vote was.
“Motion carries,” Hayes said.
One battle at a time
With that victory under her belt, Hayes pushed through the next challenge: a balanced budget.
Hayes, van Wyk and his accounting team guided council members through the cold, hard facts during six budget workshops between November and December. When they asked the accountants to show them different scenarios to test their own political priorities — ending the unpopular fire fee, privatizing more services — they could see what for years had been clear to Hayes.
The city would need all its fees to balance the budget until the first property tax payments arrive.
Hayes won over enough opponents to narrowly pass a $6 million balanced budget.
Lovette and Dodd voted against it, with Lovette saying she didn’t want to break her promise to voters that the fire fee would be temporary.
Hayes described the victory as bittersweet. “I had to balance the needs of the city with the needs of the citizens, to make sure that all our bases were covered and that we were really looking out to make sure the citizens and the City of Walthourville didn’t go under,” she said.
Moving into 2026, Hayes hoped to start a new cooperative chapter with her council members.
Over the Christmas holidays, Hayes paid out of her pocket to spruce up the council chambers, refreshing the brown 1970s-era wall paneling, replacing the stained carpet and painting the walls a warm, pale yellow, Even the old stacking chairs got a makeover with fresh seat covers.
The move channeled the spirit of Walthourville’s first mayor, Lyndol Anderson, who is revered, in part, for donating her salary to help fund the new city’s first annual budget.
Hayes says the move was “a statement. This city is making a fresh start.”
Bookkeepers are still working on four years of mandatory audits that Walthourville must file to be eligible for state and federal grants. At publication time, state records show related budget reports for 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024 have been submitted. Reports for 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2023 are outstanding.
Meanwhile, Hayes’ political rivals have circled.
Boston, now mayor pro tem, is demanding more cuts to overworked city staff. He pushed through a $20,000 payment for consultants to update job descriptions and evaluate employee benefits packages. Boston has said he sees no reason for the city to pay for its employees’ healthcare when the state could pick up the tab.
Kelly, meanwhile, has announced another town hall at the Liberty County College and Career Academy to be held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21. No agenda was available at publication.
Hayes said she plans to continue shepherding the flock so that the city can survive.
“My goal, my focus is, you know, to balance things where we’re getting the bills paid, but people can afford to live in Walthourville,” Hayes said. “And I think once we get through this transition period, it’ll be okay.”
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