By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Three referendums go to Nov. 8 Bulloch ballot: E-SPLOST, T-SPLOST, liquor stores
School and transportation taxes to max out before deadlines
W Charles Wilson
Superintendent Charles Wilson

Bulloch County voters will say yes or no on an unusually large number of local referendums, three, in the November general election. Two have to do with sales taxes; one with liquor.

The Board of Education and the Board of Commissioners recently acted separately to put questions for five-year extensions of two 1% special purpose local option sales taxes, the Education SPLOST and Transportation SPLOST, on the Nov. 8 ballot.

The E-SPLOST funds capital spending for the Bulloch County Schools, such as school and athletic facility construction and school bus, technology and security equipment purchases. The T-SPLOST funds spending for roads, streets, sidewalks and bike paths for Bulloch County and the cities of Statesboro, Brooklet, Portal and Register, as well as for the county-operated airport and Statesboro’s planned public bus system.

A third local board, the Board of Elections and Registration, acted in a special meeting Tuesday to “issue the call for election,” a legal formality, on both SPLOST questions. The election board in mid-June formalized the commissioners’ earlier request to put a referendum on the ballot for whether liquor stores will be permitted in the county’s unincorporated area.

Bulloch County Election Supervisor Shontay Jones, who has worked in the county’s elections for more than 20 years, doesn’t remember a previous instance of three local referendums appearing on one ballot.

“I don’t recall having three referendums on a November ballot,” she said. “But if the idea is, with your local commissioners’ races and the state races on the ballot, to bring out your maximum amount of voters to vote on something, then now would be the time, especially so that we don’t have to have a special election next year.”

Jones noted that she and the elections board, whose members are appointed, do not create the referendum questions or endorse their content. They only acted to put the items on the ballot at the request of the elected school board and commissioners, following a procedure spelled out in state law.

 

E-SPLOST 5

The Bulloch County Board of Education, in a regular meeting that lasted little more than 10 minutes last Thursday evening, unanimously passed the resolution for a new five-year Education SPLOST. School system staff members have dubbed it “E-SPLOST 5” because voters over the years have approved four previous five-year installments of the 1% tax. The first one was approved in 2003.

The new referendum resolution calls for EPLOST 5 collections to begin either on July 1, 2023, or the beginning of the next calendar quarter after the current tax reaches its dollar limit and expires. The resolution caps the next five years’ revenue at a maximum of $110 million but allows the school district to borrow money against that revenue, such as by issuing bonds, up to a maximum of $80 million.

The $80 million debt limit is closer to what the current collection rate suggests would be received over the next five years, but the $110 million limit is meant to be high enough that it won’t cause the tax to sunset early again.

“What we do is we look at the potential collections and projections and try to avoid cutting ourselves short on collections,” Superintendent of Schools Charles Wilson said Wednesday.  “If you set a ceiling of ‘X’ and you collect up to that before then, it expires automatically.”

When approved by a large majority of Bulloch County voters on Nov. 7, 2017 – more than a year in advance – the current E-SPLOST 4 was slated to run from Jan. 1, 2019, until Dec. 31, 2023. However, it was also capped at $62 million maximum revenue. That was $11 million more than the $51 million that officials expressed confidence would be collected five years ago. The borrowing limit was only $40 million.

 

Predictions exceeded

But monthly returns from both the E-SPLOST and the T-SPLOST have surged to unforeseen levels, especially since the January 2020 enactment of a state law that applied state and local sales taxes to Georgia residents’ purchases from national online retailers.

So both taxes now appear certain to expire months before their original deadlines. But voter approval on Nov. 8 would avert any lapse in revenue.

Construction of a proposed new Southeast Bulloch High School is expected to take up the largest portion of E-SPLOST 5 revenue. The added school would be key to a strategy, announced more than a year ago, to make room for more students at all grade levels in the Southeast Bulloch zone.

“The big reason for this SPLOST renewal will be for the building of the new high school,” Wilson said.  “We don’t know what those construction costs will look like. … I think it’s just going to come down to when we time this, how it gets designed and of course what are the costs of construction are at that time.

“Hopefully, we’re going to see construction costs come down at some time in the not too far off future,” he added. “If that is the case, we’ll be able to do more with what we have.”

 

The T-SPLOST

Meanwhile, the T-SPLOST, first approved by a majority of Bulloch County voters in May 2018, will be up for its first proposed renewal, also for another five years.

The 2018 referendum would have allowed the tax to run from Oct. 1 of that year to Sept. 30 of 2023, but it also set a $60 million revenue cap. County officials now say that limit could be reached as early as April.

After a change in state law, no revenue cap is required for a T-SPLOST established under an intergovernmental agreement. So the resolution approved by the commissioners Tuesday morning projects “an estimated amount of $72 million” revenue from the next five years of the tax but does not state that this is an exact limit.

“The one of them that I hope people really see the need for is the T-SPLOST, as far as the county is concerned. That will benefit everyone,” Board of Commissioners Chairman Roy Thompson said Wednesday. “You’re looking at seventy-plus million dollars that we can pave roads with, buy road equipment and all that, and we would be hard pressed to do much if we don’t get it, as far as road work.”

Adding that he is sure the Board of Education would push equally for passage of the E-SPLOST, he said voters should realize that both are “just continuations of the taxes that they approved the last time.”

Sales taxes on nonexempt items in Bulloch County currently total 8%, which will remain the same if the T-SPLOST and E-SPLOST renewals are approved. That includes a 4% general revenue tax that goes to the state, as well as four 1% local option taxes. The others are the original LOST, which in Bulloch County goes for school system operations, and the original SPLOST, divided among the cities and county for special projects.