When voters go to the polls in six months to decide whether to approve the fifth cycle of the county’s special-purpose local-option sales tax, they will have a fixed list of projects that are to be funded should the referendum be approved. By law, the county can only apply SPLOST funds to those projects.
The SPLOST committee appointed by the Henry County Board of Commissioners unveiled its final list of recommended projects at the April 16 regular meeting of the commissioners. It was the fruit of nine months’ labor, spanning 17 public meetings convened in every commission district of the county.
The commissioners are now tasked with the responsibility of creating the ultimate list that will be attached to the referendum. It could be almost identical to the committee’s list, or it could end up looking nothing like it.
Whatever happens, the board is wasting no time addressing the matter. A workshop meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, May 14, at 9 a.m. to go over the SPLOST project list as well as the FY2020 budget.
The committee used a projected revenue total of $245 million over the life of SPLOST V, factoring in the 75/25 split between the county and its four cities, when compiling the project list. The final recommendations amounted to $51,446,000 for countywide projects and $132,304,000 for district projects, or $26,460,800 per district.
Capital projects cited by the committee included a jail pod addition; a fleet replacement program; Probate Court parking; a police precinct and new fire station in Ola; a Fairview police and fire precinct plus a fire station rebuild; a police station in District 2 along with a fire station rebuild; and fire station equipment. There was also a lengthy list of major transportation projects, intersection projects, and dirt road projects for each district.
Absent from the list is a convention center, the desire for which some commissioners have made no secret. It was the subject of considerable discussion by the SPLOST committee during its meetings, but the combination of citizen opposition, projected cost and lack of a feasibility study, among other reasons, led the committee to leave it off the proposed list.
There was an announcement in early April touting a public-private partnership for a massive facility near Stockbridge and I-75, but it has not been voted on or even discussed in a commission meeting since then. The board approved a $180 million capital projects list a few months ago and that total includes $90 million for a convention center, but there were no concrete funding details to go along with it.
As for SPLOST V, the remainder of the timeline calls for a June 4 vote of the commissioners to approve the project list, and an intergovernmental agreement with the cities to come shortly after that – before Aug. 1, because that is when the list of all project, county and cities, must be submitted to the elections office so the ballot can be prepared. Election day is Nov. 5. Should the referendum pass, collections for the latest SPLOST would being April 1, 2020, immediately upon completion of the current cycle.
