The FLOST, or Floating Local Option Sales Tax, is a new 1% sales tax that will be collected for five years beginning Thursday – January 1. Its revenue will go into a special fund to be used by the Bulloch County government and the municipalities of Statesboro, Brooklet, Portal and Register for a future proportional rollback of their property tax rates.

In November, 6,509 Bulloch County voters, or 71.7%, said “yes” to FLOST, while 2,570 other citizens voted “no.”

The addition of FLOST will bring the total of sales taxes in Bulloch County to 9% on non-exempt items. The total tax includes Georgia’s 4% state sales tax and, in Bulloch, the original Local Option Sales Tax; the multipurpose Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or SPLOST; the Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or T-SPLOST; and the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or E-SPLOST.

All FLOST revenue collected can’t be distributed to the cities or used by the county for a rollback until July 1, 2027, when the amount may be allocated toward tax bills and help either offset potential tax increases or allow for potential tax decreases. The delay until after the first year’s revenue accumulates is intended to give the local governments time to build the new revenue into their fiscal year 2027-28 budgets, which would begin on that date.

So, property taxpayers won’t actually see the resulting millage rate rollback for almost two years.

Until that time, the money will be held in a special fund. Interest can be earned on bank deposits of the money, and that also would be distributed among the cities and county.

In 2024, the Georgia General Assembly gave certain counties the option to call for a FLOST referendum if they chose to offer homestead exemption to qualified homeowners. The FLOST is a means for counties to generate revenue and offset potential property tax increases in the future.