By Shane Scoggins
Publisher
CARNESVILLE – As its name implies, the special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) may only be used for specially designated projects.
But that doesn’t mean the tax pays for any unnecessary luxuries that can be skipped.
“If we ever ran into a situation where we didn’t have the SPLOST, then as far as taxes are concerned, there will be the likelihood that there would have to be an increase in taxes because there would be additional costs because we would need to complete projects,” Franklin County Manager Derrick Turner said. “We would still need to do different various things like paying off hospital debt, so all that money has to still come from somewhere because you can’t at that point not have a SPLOST and let everything fall into disrepair.”
Franklin County voters will decide in the Nov. 8 general election whether to extend the SPLOST for county and city projects for up to another six years.
If passed, the SPLOST extension would maintain the sales tax rate in the county to seven cents for every $1 spent.
The county’s portion of the SPLOST will pay for “general obligation debt, water, roads, streets and bridges, fire services, public safety, water, sewer and utilities, industrial development, recreation and airport authority for Franklin County,” according to the wording on the ballot for county projects.
• Debt.
Franklin County is using a portion of its SPLOST proceeds to pay off bonds that were used to help build what is now St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia.
The county guaranteed $8 million in bonds toward the $47 million price of the hospital built in 2012 as Ty Cobb Regional Medical Center.
After financial struggles at the hospital, the county agreed to make the bond payments.
The sale of the hospital to the parent organization for St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens did not affect the county’s portion of the debt.
Currently, the county pays a little less than $400,000 per year on the hospital bond, but that number will increase to a little more than $700,000 next year, Turner said.
“You would definitely not want to raise a mill to have to cover that,” Turner said.
One mill in county property taxes brings in around $700,000.
• Buildings.
The county plans to use SPLOST proceeds to address some lingering problems with county buildings, as well as for maintenance.
“Since almost all of our buildings are repurposed buildings, that means they all have some age on them. So with those having a lot of age comes repairs and upkeep,” Turner said.
The sales tax proceeds will pay for a new roof at the elections office and to replace aging heating and air systems in other county buildings, he said.
It will also be used for continuing work on the historic courthouse, which has had ongoing issues with its belltower and leaks.
Turner said the county has a plan to make the belltower secure – which includes replacing some joists and building walkways so maintenance employees can get from one side of the building to another.
“It will be a pretty sizable project,” he said, adding that the idea is “so we can have the belltower and the courthouse for as long as humanly possible.”
The new SPLOST will also be used to address overcrowding issues at the jail.
Turner said the county is looking at a plan uses by White County to use a Butler building with individual modules for each prisoner.
Each prisoner’s module has its own shower and sink area, and the facility is built in such a way that the modules can be maintained from outside and stacked on top each other.
If the county can build such an extension, then prisoners in the current jail could be moved to the new area while maintenance is done on the current building.
The jail has plumbing issues that will require the replacement of pipes, the county manager said
• Fire services.
A new county-wide fire training center is in the works as well, Turner said.
“This is going to help with our ISO rating but also give a really good opportunity for all the volunteer firemen to have their own facility, train, do everything they need to do to do the best they can for the county,” he said.
Money would also be available for departments in the unincorporated county to use to buy new trucks if they are needed, he said.
• Water and sewer.
Turner said SPLOST money would be used for water and sewer improvements such as upgrading water meters to ones that can be read electronically by driving through neighborhoods and some expansion of the sewer system for potential industries.
The county also plans to expand its wastewater treatment plant from its current capacity of 300,000 gallons per day to it permitted limit of 900,000 gallons per day.
• Other projects.
The county also allocates SPLOST money to the Industrial Building Authority, Airport Authority and Recreation Department for their use in upcoming projects.
Money designated for roads in SPLOST is used to match state grants and other road projects, though it’s not enough to do a lot of paving, Turner said.
The current SPLOST is set to run out in March. If the extension of SPLOST is approved in November, the extension of the one-cent tax will just pick up from there.