In-person early voting ends Friday, for Bulloch County's SPLOST renewal special election. The referendum on whether to extend the 1% Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax six years for a projected $138 million revenue will conclude with next Tuesday, March 18 as Election Day.
An intergovernmental agreement approved by the county Board of Commissioners and the city and town councils of Statesboro, Brooklet, Portal and Register in November proposed the SPLOST extension and set out how the revenue will be shared. If approved, the new six-year run of the tax will begin Oct. 1.
As an extension of an existing tax, it would not increase the total sales tax collected in Bulloch County, which is 8% on nonexempt items. This includes Georgia's 4% statewide tax and four local 1% taxes.
Whether the tax should be extended is the only question on the ballot, with the only answers for voters to choose being "yes" or "no."
But the ballot question is more than 250 words long, listing types of projects the money can be used for, by the county government and each municipality, and naming a few specific projects.
The in-person, no-excuse early voting began Feb. 24 weeks included two Saturdays, just as in a Georgia general election.
Early voting
The only early voting location is the Board of Elections and Registration office at the County Annex, 113 North Main St., Suite 201, Statesboro. It will be open for early voting 8 a.m.-5 p.m. through Friday.
Mail-out absentee ballots were available to Bulloch County registered voters if applied for by the March 7 deadline.
On Election Day, March 18, polls in all 16 of Bulloch County's traditional voting precincts will be open 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. for their assigned voters who haven't voted early or absentee.
Voters can check their voter information on the statewide My Voter Page, https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/.
One long question
The long question that voters will answer on the SPLOST ballot begins: "Shall a special 1 percent sales and use tax be imposed in … Bulloch County for a period of time not to exceed six years for the raising of an estimated … $138,000,000 for the purposes of (a)(i) an addition to the Bulloch County Jail, and (ii) joint solid waste projects of Bulloch County and Statesboro including, but not necessarily limited to, the purchase of space in a regional landfill … ?"
Although less than one-third of the total question, that passage sets out the first two projects, which the intergovernmental agreement calls "joint and priority projects," meant to serve the whole county. The ballot question does not include specific cost numbers for these projects or any of the other project categories, but the agreement assigns the jail project $51 million and the joint solid waste project $9.6 million.
After the first two projects, the ballot question mostly lists general categories of proposed spending by the county and each of the four towns, but a few specific projects are mentioned.
Examples include "public safety facilities and/or equipment," recreational facilities, voting equipment, improvements to the courthouse and judicial buildings, for the county; computer equipment and software, water and sewer and natural gas projects, cultural facilities, administrative buildings, "parks, trails and greenspaces," "public works and cemetery," storm drains and public parking lots for Statesboro.
Similar spending types, including water and sewer projects and city vehicle and equipment purchases are listed for Brooklet, water main and community center improvements for Portal, but specifically a new roof on a water pump building and improvements to the town hall in Register.
The ballot question mentions no numbers other than the projected $138 million total, which is a conservative estimate and not a limit. But the intergovernmental agreement provides a breakout of the amounts for each local government.
Shares by population
After the $60.6 million assigned to the shared-priority jail and solid waste disposal projects, the revenue would be assigned to the county based on the population of its rural area and to the cities based on their shares of the total county population.
Of the $77.4 million projected to remain after the priority projects, the county government's portion of the revenue would be about 55.7%, or $43.1 million. Statesboro's city share would be $31.9 million, or 41.2% of the $77.4 million subtotal.
The city of Brooklet's share would be 2.1%, or $1.625 million. The city of Portal's share would be 0.79%, or $611,460; the town of Register's share, 0.19%, or $147,060.
If after economic growth or inflation the tax nets more than $138 million, additional amounts would be directed to the same kinds of projects. A priority would be "jail debt," with the agreement allowing the county to borrow up to $60 million for the jail project, or $9 million more than the $51 million priority revenue assigned to it.