With early voting underway for the May 22 election, one question is on every Bulloch County ballot, regardless of party choice or district lines: the referendum on a proposed new transportation sales tax called T-SPLOST.
The full name, Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, isn’t on the sample ballot, which describes it as a 1 percent “sales and use tax” for transportation. As the ballot question states, the maximum revenue from the five-year tax would be $60 million. But county and city officials are counting on a lower estimate, at least $48 million, as more certain “Tier 1” money. Anything above that, up to the $60 million cap, is “Tier 2.”
Officials hope to use the revenue for intersection improvements, paving of dirt roads, resurfacing of paved ones and equipment for road and street maintenance. Extensions of sidewalks in Statesboro and the S&S Greenway Trail in the county are suggested uses. The county has specifically earmarked a relatively small part of its share for the airport, while a similar portion of Statesboro’s funds would go to develop public transit, namely a limited bus system.
“I’ve spoken to a couple of groups, and everybody I see I mention it to them, and I’ve really not had any negative comments, because I think everybody realizes that it’s a very fair tax,” said Roy Thompson, chairman of the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners.
One point he likes to make is that “visitors” to the county, a category that also includes people who commute for work or come here for college, will help fund road paving, bridge repairs and “just anything transportation” through T-SPLOST.
By shifting transportation projects to this added tax, county officials also hope to free up funds from the existing multipurpose SPLOST for other projects, such as expansion of the Bulloch County Jail. Officials of the county and the four towns have recently begun discussions for a separate referendum, possibly for the November ballot, to extend that sales tax.
“We’re doing everything we can, I’m talking about now and in the future, to keep from raising property taxes,” Thompson said.
A new tax
If passed now, the T-SPLOST will increase the total of local and state sales taxes in Bulloch to 8 percent on nonexempt items beginning Oct. 1. Existing 1 percent local taxes include a regular Local Option Sales Tax and an Education SPLOST, both of which go to the school system, and the multipurpose SPLOST divided among the county and city governments. Four pennies tax on each dollar spent go to the state government.
As with the existing SPLOST, the proposed Transportation SPLOST distribution is based roughly on population. But the smaller towns would each get a larger percentage of the money than would follow strictly from their share of the county’s residents.
Over the course of the five years, the county is to receive 51.3 percent of the revenue, or a $24.62 million out of the first $48 million, or Tier 1. The city of Statesboro would get 43 percent of all the revenue, or $20.64 million of that first $48 million. Brooklet is to get a 3.2 percent share; Portal 1.6 percent; and Register, 0.9 percent.
However, the Tier 1 revenue to the smaller cities is “frontloaded” so that they would not have to wait for their totals to accumulate. Brooklet would get its $1,536,000, Portal its $768,000 and Register its $432,000 in the first few months of the tax, before Statesboro and the county begin receiving their shares.
At the maximum revenue level of $60 million, which will not be reached without increased economic growth, the county government’s share would amount to $30.78 million, Statesboro’s $25.8 million, Brooklet’s $1.92 million, Portal’s $960,000 and Register’s $540,000.
County projects
Under the T-SPLOST agreement, the statement of purposes designates a little of the county’s share to the Statesboro-Bulloch County Airport. At the Tier 1 level, the airport would get $450,000, expected to be help match state and federal grants for improvements.
The rest of the county’s share, somewhere between $24 million and $30 million, would go to “road, street and bridge purposes.” Sidewalks, bicycle paths and road maintenance equipment are also included here.
If just $24.6 million comes to the county, $5 million could go to paving dirt roads, $5 million for resurfacing and another $5 million for intersection improvements, said County Manager Tom Couch. According his pie chart, the county would also allocate $3.75 million for heavy equipment, $1.75 million to bridge repairs and upgrades, $1.62 million to bicycle and pedestrian projects, $800,000 to safety striping and signs and $150,000 for a borrow pit.
With $5 million for paving and if property owners are willing to donate right of way, the county could, over five years, pave up to 15.6 miles, or about 2 percent of its remaining dirt roads, Couch projected.
The $5 million for resurfacing would go further, augmented by state funding to cover up to 125 miles, or about 30 percent of the local network of paved roads, in five years, he estimates.
Under intersection improvements, roundabouts could be added at three locations and a signal at another, the county’s T-SPLOST fact sheet suggests.
“We can’t meet all of our needs, but we can punch a good hole in them,” Couch said in a recent interview.
Statesboro projects
Intersection improvements, suggested to receive $4.9 million at the Tier 1 level, form the costliest category in the city of Statesboro’s T-SPLOST want list.
Street resurfacing and repair is listed as a $3.59 million category, while roadway and street draining improvements are suggested to get $2.9 million, bicycle and pedestrian projects $2.2 million and streetscapes $1.75 million. Another $2 million has been tagged, in concept, for new roads or street extensions in Statesboro, and the city also has an $875,000 category for added parking spaces and $850,000 for heavy equipment.
Originally, city staff members made a list showing projected costs adding up to $47.27 million.
“So you can see, we still wouldn’t be bringing in but about half of what we’ve got listed, but man, it’s a great start, and then maybe if people saw we were successful we would get another round (of T-SPLOST) and then we could start knocking out those other projects,” said Statesboro Deputy City Manager Robert Cheshire.
In fact, the referendum and agreement do not bind the cities or the county to any particular projects or kinds of projects within the “road, street and bridge” category.
Public transit
The only more specific commitments are the county’s allocation to the airport and Statesboro’s earmark of $450,000 to public transit. Cheshire’s list describes this as for the creation or expansion of a “limited-route bus system.”
Mayor Jonathan McCollar said Statesboro needs T-SPLOST to move forward in taking care of its streets, building out sidewalks and completing other projects.
“But a key thing that we’re really focusing in on is the possibility of public transportation, and I think that that’s something that can help lift all boats within our community,” McCollar said. “It will allow us to get people moving, and we know that when people are on buses they’re on buses for two reasons, that’s either to spend money or to make money.”
Herald reporter Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.