Bartow County, Georgia — county seat Cartersville — is governed by a
sole Commissioner form of government. Its fiscal year is the
calendar year, ending December 31, unlike Georgia's June 30 fiscal-year counties.
Every figure below comes from the county's own published documents, labeled with its year and status exactly as published.
Total budget, all funds — expenditures
$267,641,865
Budgeted revenues & transfers are $285,193,165 — the two totals are shown separately, never blended. See note 2 below.
2026 · Proposed
General Fund budget
$156,326,700
The county's main operating fund, across 29 departments and offices.
2026 · Proposed
General Fund fund balance
$104,528,187
Of which $94,351,445 is unassigned (modified-accrual fund basis).
FY2025 · Audited
Total governmental fund balances
$135,055,714
General Fund, 2020 SPLOST capital projects, nonmajor funds, and the ARP fund combined.
FY2025 · Audited
Total debt
$58,433,286
Governmental $29,868,379 + business-type $28,564,907. Composition in Breakdown 4.
FY2025 · Audited
Total long-term liabilities (Note 12 schedule)
$73,419,746
The net pension liability ($42,097,672) and net OPEB liability ($88,411,079) are reported separately on the Statement of Net Position and are not folded into this figure or into "debt."
FY2025 · Audited
Total net position
$526,949,926
Government-wide, full-accrual basis. Unrestricted net position is negative — see note 5 below.
FY2025 · Audited
Population
120,800
U.S. Census estimate, July 1, 2025, as reported in the FY2025 Annual Financial Report.
Census estimate
Breakdown 1 — Proposed 2026 General Fund budget by department
How the proposed $156,326,700 General Fund budget is divided among the county's departments and constitutional offices. Bars and percentages are each department's share of the General Fund total.
Source: Proposed 2026 Operating Budget, Bartow County — 2026, Proposed. Read the source PDF
Breakdown 2 — Proposed 2026 revenues & transfers by fund
Budgeted revenues and transfers for every county fund in the proposed 2026 budget. The General Fund and the Water Department together account for about 87% of the total.
Why revenues exceed expenditures: budgeted revenues & transfers ($285,193,165) exceed budgeted expenditures ($267,641,865) by $17,551,300 — entirely because the Capital Project Fund ($15,746,300), Insurance Reserve Fund ($1,100,000), and OPEB Trust Fund ($1,100,000) budget revenues with $0 budgeted expenditures, partly offset by the ARP fund's $395,000 excess of expenditures over revenues.
The expenditure side of the same budget, by fund group:
General Fund$156,326,700
Enterprise funds$101,378,000
Special Revenue funds$8,513,000
Special Revenue under constitutional offices$1,344,165
Debt Service$80,000
Total expenditures, all funds$267,641,865
Source: Proposed 2026 Operating Budget, Bartow County — 2026, Proposed. Read the source PDF
Breakdown 3 — Governmental fund balances by fund
Audited fund balances at December 31, 2025. The General Fund holds more than three-quarters of the total; the 2020 SPLOST fund holds sales-tax proceeds earmarked for capital projects.
Source: Annual Financial Report — Bartow County, Georgia, For the year ended December 31, 2025 — FY2025, Audited. Read the source PDF
Breakdown 4 — Total debt composition
Audited debt outstanding at December 31, 2025, split between governmental and business-type activities. This is debt only — pension and OPEB liabilities are reported separately and are not included here.
Certificates of Participation (1998 COPS)$1,855,000
Subscriptions payable$918,445
Leases payable$542,687
Notes from direct borrowings$435,855
Governmental subtotal$29,868,379
Business-type activities
GEFA notes from direct borrowings$26,823,934
Revenue bonds payable, incl. premium$1,740,973
Business-type subtotal$28,564,907
Total debt$58,433,286
About the largest item: the $26,116,392 guarantee obligation is a county guarantee of Development Authority obligations — not bonds the county issued for itself. In early 2026 the county paid off the remaining $23,280,335 balance of the Development Authority Series 2015 Recreational Facilities bonds, so the audited December 31, 2025 debt shown here predates that reduction. Credit ratings stated in the Annual Financial Report: S&P AA (2022) and Moody's Aa1 (2023).
Source: Annual Financial Report — Bartow County, Georgia, For the year ended December 31, 2025 — FY2025, Audited. Read the source PDF
Notes & disclosures
Proposed, not adopted. The county's only published 2026 budget document is labeled "Proposed 2026 Operating Budget"; no adopted budget book is posted on bartowcountyga.gov. All 2026 figures on this page are labeled Proposed, never Adopted.
Two totals, kept separate. In the proposed budget, budgeted revenues & transfers ($285,193,165) exceed budgeted expenditures ($267,641,865) by $17,551,300 — entirely because the Capital Project Fund ($15,746,300), Insurance Reserve Fund ($1,100,000), and OPEB Trust Fund ($1,100,000) budget revenues with $0 budgeted expenditures, partly offset by the ARP fund's $395,000 excess of expenditures over revenues. Both totals are presented with this explanation rather than blended into a single "total budget."
SPLOST program total excluded. The separate "2026 SPLOST Capital Project Length Budget" of $308,000,000 is a multi-year program total. It is not part of either all-funds total above and has not been added to them.
The guarantee obligation. The largest debt item, the $26,116,392 guarantee obligation, is a county guarantee of Development Authority obligations, not bonds the county issued for itself. In early 2026 the county paid off the remaining $23,280,335 balance of the Development Authority Series 2015 Recreational Facilities bonds, so audited December 31, 2025 debt predates that reduction. Credit ratings stated in the Annual Financial Report: S&P AA (2022), Moody's Aa1 (2023).
Two different accounting bases. Unrestricted net position is negative (−$21,015,899), driven principally by the net OPEB liability ($88,411,079) and net pension liability ($42,097,672) on the government-wide, full-accrual statements. The large positive General Fund unassigned balance ($94,351,445) is measured on the modified-accrual fund basis. The two figures are not contradictory — they are different measurement bases.
Calendar fiscal year. Bartow County's fiscal year is the calendar year, ending December 31 — unlike Georgia counties on a June 30 fiscal year. "FY2025" here means the year ended December 31, 2025.
Sources
Every figure on this page is drawn from these two documents published by Bartow County.
Annual Financial Report — Bartow County, Georgia, For the year ended December 31, 2025