District 160 Rep. Lehman Franklin III, R-Statesboro, is co-sponsoring a bill in the Georgia House of Representatives intended to let Bulloch and a few other counties exceed an 8% cap on total sales taxes with a ninth penny dedicated to a rollback of property tax rates.

House Bill 1000 was placed in the hopper of pending legislation Jan.  23 by Rep. Victor Anderson, R-Cornelia, District 10, as its author and with Franklin as one of five co-sponsors. Before a new sales tax could actually be imposed, not only will the bill have to be enacted by the state House and Senate, but a majority of county voters would have to approve in a local referendum. 

The general idea was brought up last July by Bulloch County Manager Tom Couch while he and the county commissioners were facing heated public criticism about increasing the property tax millage rate on top of inflation in real estate values. Bulloch County is one of currently eight Georgia counties where the original penny of Local Option Sales Tax, or LOST, remains dedicated to the operation and maintenance of county schools.

Other 1% local sales taxes, including a later Education-Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or E-SPLOST, the more general SPLOST for various "special" purposes, and a transportation purposes tax or T-SPLOST, bring the total to the effective 4% maximum of local sales taxes. The state collects another 4% for its own use.

Under the original Georgia law that authorized local sales taxes, they were limited to 2%, and that language is still on the books. But exceptions to that cap have been created elsewhere in the law and state Constitution.  With House Bill 1000, Anderson, Franklin and the other sponsors seek to add another exception for Bulloch and the seven other counties where the original LOST is dedicated to school maintenance and operations.

"This just allows for another LOST to be created, basically, moving pieces around so that ceiling can be taken away so that the county can have that LOST as well," Franklin told the Statesboro Herald.

For county and cities

Actually, the revenue would be shared by governments of a county and its cities — in Bulloch this includes Statesboro, Brooklet, Portal and Register — under an intergovernmental agreement, Couch said in a separate interview.

After its first reading Jan. 24, the bill was assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee and given its formal second reading Thursday, Jan. 25.

So it's still very early in the process, as Franklin acknowledged.

"This is where the fun part begins," he said Friday. "I think the bill in itself is going to be really, really good, but this is where it kind of gets really dug into and maybe gets tweaked a little bit and you get a bunch of eyes on it, and we get to have more input to see if it could be a better bill, or if we need to do something different or if something was overlooked."

That process, he said, will probably begin this week. If voted out by the committee and passed by the House, it would go on to the Senate.

"I think it has potential to be a really good thing for our community," Franklin said. "I don't see any major flaws in it at this point. But like I said, it could evolve."

For millage rollback

Both he and Couch said the idea is to provide a sales tax to be used for the exclusive purpose of rolling back property taxes by replacing revenue. That is also the case with the original LOST, except that in Bulloch County, the LOST goes to the Board of Education and is reported as a rollback of its portion of property taxes.

"The county's goal with this idea in supporting this legislation is property tax relief, not trying to negotiate revenue gains," Couch told the Herald. "We're just trying to replace the revenue that would be offset by using sales taxes instead of property taxes."

In fiscal year 2023, the original 1% LOST brought more than $18.5 million to Bulloch County Schools. So an added sales tax could produce comparable revenue to be divided by the city and county governments. In comparison, this year, 1 mill of property tax nets almost $3 million for the county government, but the value of a mill for city taxes varies because of the greatly differing size of the cities and their tax bases.

"No matter how you cut the pie, it could be a real benefit for city residents. …," Couch said.  "Portal and Register, if they get an adequate cut, may not even have to have a property tax rate. Statesboro and Brooklet's could go down substantially, and the early research is that we feel like the county, if you're an unincorporated resident, you could get at least a 3- or 4-mill saving."

One thing that Bulloch officials at first thought might have  to happen — that the eight counties with original LOST revenues dedicated to schools would all have to agree to change the law — turns out not to be true in the current bill, as written with guidance from Legislative Counsel staff attorneys, according to Franklin.

"So one county could do it out of the eight and the others don't have to do it," he said. "It's all really depending on what they choose, and what the citizens choose, actually."

He said he believes a majority of Bulloch County citizens would support the tax if they understand what it would do.

"It's an increase in the sales tax, it will be, but to offset it, the property tax will be going down the exact amount. By law it has to," Franklin said.

Commissioners comment

In a posting to the Bulloch County commissioners' Facebook page last Friday afternoon, Chairman Roy Thompson and three other commissioners commented on the bill.

"The Bulloch County Board of Commissioners is pleased to have Representative Franklin's support on House Bill 1000," Thompson stated. "This is breakthrough legislation on potential property tax relief for county taxpayers."

If the bill is passed and signed by the governor, the question "will be placed on a referendum at the earliest possible date allowed by state law," said Commissioner Ray Mosley.

Couch had said that might have to be in 2025.

Commissioner Curt Deal commented on the need for the county to negotiate an agreement with the cities to distribute the revenue, if the law is passed and voters approve in a local referendum.

"The county manager and the finance staff are working on scenarios with the objective to maximize property tax savings for all county residents, and not create imbalanced revenue gains," Deal was quoted as saying.

"While it's still a sales tax, it's a fairer tax and many people outside of Bulloch County will be paying it," said Commissioner Jappy Stringer.