Leaders from 12 counties in Northeast Georgia recently approved a list of 68 transportation projects they plan to fund over 10 years if voters in the region approve a referendum next July for a one-cent transportation special purpose local option sales tax (T-SPLOST).
If passed district-wide, the counties expect to collect almost $988 million. Thursday’s district list spelled out how 75 percent of the money — $740 million — would be spent. The other 25 percent — $247 million — will be divided among the 12 counties and their municipalities by a formula based on population and miles of roadway.
Madison County stands to get two road improvement projects if the referendum passes — the widening of Hwy. 72 east of Comer and the improvement of the intersections of Hwy. 29 and Hwy. 98 in Danielsville.
The heavier populated counties would get the lion’s share of the designated projects, while rural counties like Madison, Oglethorpe and Elbert, get one or two projects.
However, for those counties, their share of the 25 percent withheld for local projects gives them incentive to support the T-SPLOST, leaders noted.
Madison County’s annual T-SPLOST revenue will be approximately $1.5 million annually. Right now, the county takes in roughly $650,000 annually in local sales tax funds for roads. Madison County’s allotment off the T-SPLOST will be larger than some other counties that generate more sales tax funding, including Oconee County.
“Oconee County will get about $1 million, $1.2 million a year,” noted Oconee Board of Commissioners chairman Melvin Davis. “That is about what we now spend (on transportation) from our SPLOST. The 25 percent will be key.”
Billy Pittard of Oglethorpe County had a similar point of view.
“The 25 percent discretionary funds will be more important to our rural counties,” he told the group. “The more you know (about the tax and spending plan), the more you recognize you need to be in support of this.”
The district is the same as the regional planning commission district, which comprises Barrow, Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Jackson, Jasper, Madison, Morgan, Newton, Oconee and Walton counties.
For all the work it took to come up with the list, chairman Hunter Bicknell, who chairs the roundtable, recognized that “now the work begins.”
He was referring to convincing voters in the midst of the Great Recession to authorize the tax. He noted that state senators who attended a meeting a day earlier of the Association County Commissioners Of Georgia were “very vocal about their expectation that this thing will fail.” Bicknell urged his fellow roundtable members to “have the attitude that it will pass” and to work to “educate the public on the benefits” of its passage.
Sen. Frank Ginn told the group that the method of voting on the tax “will be a hot topic” during the next legislative session because a number of members of the legislature object to the region-by-region vote. He asked for feedback on how members of the Transportation Roundtable felt about voting by region as opposed to statewide.
The commissioners and mayors on the roundtable expressed a preference for the regional vote.
Bicknell urged caution in changing the method of approving the T-SPLOST by the legislature.
“There is an issue of trust, of suspicion, by voters,” he warned. “Anything we do that’s a change at the eleventh hour is going to be viewed with suspicion by the voters.”
Bicknell pointed out that the state is changing the way transportation is funded.
“Funding for transportation is evaporating,” he said. “On a per-capita basis, revenue from the motor fuels sales tax is going down.” He also noted that much of Georgia’s road work in recent years was accomplished by selling bonds, the result of which is that a third of DOT revenue from the motor fuels sales tax goes to retire debt. The tax itself has not been raised in decades.
“The bottom line is we need this in the worst way,” Bicknell said. “We can’t look to Washington like we did in the past. We need to stand on our own feet.”
Tim Kassa, a transportation planning engineer in GDOT’s Office of Planning, concurred.
“The federal government is going to cut our funding by 35 percent,” he said.
If voters approve the tax, the DOT will fund 90 percent of the cost of local state road projects. If the tax fails, the DOT share will dip to 70 percent and the local cost increase to 30 percent. Had the roundtable been unable to agree on a list, the cost of such projects would have been split 50-50.
I will be voting no on this new tax.
Let it turn to dirt.
Citizens, RISE UP and vote no to another tax. Let government know we have had enough! We want to keep our money for our health care bills, retirement, etc. it is our money not governments.