The rules for Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax – or SPLOST, as we all commonly know it – are specific and finite.
We, the voters, have to pass SPLOST into existence, and our governments have to give us specific reasons (special purposes, if you will) for the money they will collect from us.
So our governments tell us what they need the money for, usually pretty vital projects that would otherwise require a property tax increase to pull off. And then we decide if those projects are worth the extra penny we shell out for every local purchase.
Our electorate rejected the Roads & Bridges SPLOST in November, with the two most commonly voiced reasons being we had too many tax increases in 2022, along with the fact the specific roads the county wishes to fix were not included in the SPLOST referendum.
Ah, now here’s the rub. Our county officials explained in town halls, commission meetings and in personal conversations time and time again that if you specify a project in SPLOST, you have to finish it by law, whether you have the money to or not.
That brings us to our SPLOST VII list for Habersham County, which is not on pace due to the underestimation of funding needed to complete the project list.
A major project on the list was the building of a new animal shelter, which will likely cost more than triple what was allocated in 2019. Some can argue inflation has made construction projects shoot up in price, but this was not entirely a case of post-COVID economics.
The original drawings were for mostly kennels, with no plans drawn for office space, staff bathroom, surgery room, or even a front lobby.
There was almost no way the facility was getting built for $1,750,000, and even with SPLOST Vll collections running about 9 percent ahead of projections, it was not going to be built for 9 percent more than that figure, either.
The county’s share of its new radio system is almost $2.5 million more than projected, making just the overages on those two projects alone more than half of the total six-year allotment for public safety capital projects in the SPLOST Vll.
That is to say nothing about the proposed E-911 command center, which was initially budgeted at $4 million, a figure that could never work in 2023.
Most of our current county leaders were not here when those plans were made, and who knows how many will be by 2026, when plans for SPLOST VIII will need to be formulated. But when those plans are drafted, let’s hope we can have a more precise picture of what we are getting for our penny.