What Does Macon-Bibb County Government Do?

If you have ever called "the city" about one problem and "the county" about another, you can stop keeping them straight. In Macon-Bibb, they are the same government.

One government, since 2014

The City of Macon and Bibb County used to be two separate governments. Voters merged them: the change took effect on January 1, 2014. The charter — the state law that created it — folded both into a single county-wide government, Macon-Bibb County, which took over everything the old city and the old county used to do. It covers the whole county.

It didn't quite, at first. A tiny separate town called Payne City sat surrounded by Macon and hung onto its own charter through the merger. That ended in 2015, when the General Assembly abolished Payne City and repealed its charter, and the area folded into Macon-Bibb like everywhere else. People still call the neighborhood Payne City; the town itself hasn't existed since.

So there is no separate city hall on one side and a county commission on the other. For everyone in the county, there is one government to deal with, and one place to direct questions.

Who runs it

Two elected offices sit at the top, and they do different jobs.

• The commission is the lawmaking side: nine commissioners, each elected by the voters of one district, plus the mayor. Together they are the Macon-Bibb County Commission. They pass ordinances (local laws), approve the yearly budget, and set the property-tax rate.
• The mayor is the executive side. Elected county-wide, the mayor runs the day-to-day government: the departments, the staff, and carrying out the laws the commission passes. The mayor leads commission meetings but has no regular vote, and steps in only to break a tie.

That split matters when you want something changed. A new law or a budget line is the commission's call. Running a department is the mayor's.

By charter, a mayor can serve two four-year terms and each commissioner can serve three. To see who represents you now, look up your district on Districts. To watch them work, PeachTracker follows every meeting and vote on Commission.

What this government handles directly

Most of the services you touch in a normal week are run straight out of the consolidated government:

• Fire and emergency management
• Parks, recreation, and Lake Tobesofkee
• Residential trash and recycling pickup
• Public works and engineering: local roads, drainage, and the crews who fix them
• Code enforcement
• Building and fire-safety inspections
• The county's airports
• Finance, facilities, and the back office that keeps it running

A pothole on a county street, an overgrown lot, a broken swing at the park, a missed garbage day — those are all this government.

What it does not run

A lot of what people assume is "the county" is actually run by a separate agency with its own board and its own budget, not by the mayor and commission:

• Water and sewer come from the Macon Water Authority, a separate public body with its own elected board.
• Public buses are run by the Macon-Bibb County Transit Authority.
• Public schools are a separate government entirely: the Bibb County School District, with its own elected board, its own superintendent, and its own line on your tax bill.

• Planning and zoning is handled by the Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning Commission, which has its own appointed board, its own director, and its own office at 3661 Eisenhower Parkway — not 700 Poplar Street. If your question is about a rezoning, a variance, or a subdivision plat, that's the office, at mbpz.org.
• Elections are run by the Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections, not by the mayor or commission. Registration, polling places, advance voting, and results all go through that board.

Some officials are elected on their own, too, and answer to voters instead of to the mayor. The sheriff runs law enforcement and the jail — that's the Bibb County Sheriff's Office, and it is the agency to call about a crime. There is no longer a separate Macon Police Department; it was folded into the Sheriff's Office. The tax commissioner sends and collects your tax bill, though the Board of Tax Assessors — a separate, appointed body — is what actually sets your property's assessed value, so a valuation appeal goes there rather than to the tax commissioner. The coroner and the clerk of superior court hold jobs defined by state law. The mayor and commission run none of them.

How to tell which is which

When something goes wrong, the quickest route to the right office is one question: is this a service, a separate agency, or an elected officer?

• A street, a park, trash, a code problem: the consolidated government.
• A water bill, a bus route, a school, an election, a rezoning: that authority, district, or board, directly.
• The jail or a court record: an elected officer's office.
• Your tax bill: the tax commissioner. Your property's value: the Board of Tax Assessors.

Still not sure who to call? Ask Mulberry, PeachTracker's local civic assistant, in plain words, and it will point you to the right place.

Macon-Bibb County Charter (Part I — the Charter) — Macon and Bibb County were restructured into one county-wide government by voter referendum, effective January 1, 2014, superseding both (Section 1); the charter as enacted excluded the City of Payne City from the new government's territory (Section 1); the governing authority is a commission of a mayor and nine commissioners (Section 5); the sheriff, tax commissioner, coroner, and clerk of superior court keep their duties (Section 8); commissioners are elected by district by majority, and the mayor presides but votes only to break a tie (Section 9); the mayor is elected county-wide and limited to two four-year terms, commissioners to three (Section 10); the commission adopts the budget and provides residential solid-waste collection (Section 11); and the commission sets the property-tax millage rate by ordinance (Section 29).

Georgia General Assembly — HB 575 (2015), Act 13 — "an Act to repeal an Act creating a new charter for Payne City, approved May 16, 2007 (Ga. L. 2007, p. 3555), as amended, so as to abolish Payne City." It passed the House 162-0 on March 18, 2015 and the Senate 48-0 on March 20, and was signed by the Governor effective March 27, 2015. Payne City no longer exists, so the consolidated government now covers all of Bibb County.

Macon-Bibb County — Departments — the departments and services the consolidated government runs directly, and the separately run offices (Sheriff, Tax Commissioner, Coroner, Board of Elections, Board of Assessors, 911 Communications).

Last reviewed July 2026. Officials and department names change over time — see something out of date? Tell us.