Fayette County voters overwhelmingly rejected a special local option sales tax renewal Tuesday, which would have raised an estimated $136 million for transportation projects and the acquisition of the county’s justice center. The center is currently being paid for through a long term lease/purchase agreement.
Over 75-percent of the 11,791 voters who cast ballots said ‘no’ to the SPLOST -- sending a clear message to the county’s elected officials, many of whom spoke highly of the SPLOST projects before officially electing to place the referendum on the ballot.
The county’s sales tax will drop from 7 percent to 6 percent in April when the current transportation SPLOST expires.
County and municipal officials voted unanimously to seek a SPLOST renewal earlier this year, noting the justice center acquisition would save taxpayers millions in future interest payments. Georgia law prevents elected officials from openly endorsing a proposed SPLOST once it has been placed on the ballot.
Former county commissioner Harold Bost led an effort to oppose the SPLOST. He and the Fayette Citizens for Open Government political action committee advertised and campaigned against the measure.
“I’m extremely happy with the result of the SPLOST election,” Bost said late Tuesday night as the final tallies rolled in.
“The timing surely had an effect, with the economy being the way it is, but this was just a poor SPLOST and the voters realized that. The projects were a laundry list of un-needed transportation initiatives and bad ideas.
“It was not well focused. The voters saw that the scope was too widespread and the justice center buyout is just false economics.”
Bost said the value the county would gain by paying early on the justice center would ultimately be offset by long term inflation.
“The justice center part would have freed up about $3.6 million annually in the county budget in the short term. With inflation, long term savings projections were dubious at best. And you can bet that money was not going to go back to the taxpayer,” Bost said.
“It would simply be used on some other line items in the general fund.”
County Commission Chairman Jack Smith said Tuesday that he knew the SPLOST would be a tough sell.
“Given the economy, the best I was expecting would have been near a 50-50 split,” he said.
However, other Georgia districts passed SPLOST referendums Tuesday, suggesting that the economy was not the only factor in Fayette voters’ overwhelmingly negative response.
In Floyd County (Rome, Ga.), voters narrowly approved a SPLOST renewal Tuesday that will pay for a new public safety communication system, among other things.
Douglas County voters approved a new SPLOST -- actually increasing the county’s sales tax by one percent -- to pay for a new county jail.
In September, Clayton County voters renewed a school SPLOST with a whopping 75-percent of the vote.
The West Fayetteville Bypass, a main cog of the current Fayette County SPLOST, has been an extremely controversial project. Its unpopularity among some county residents may have swayed voters this time around.
While no committee formed to support the SPLOST renewal effort, popular retired sherriff Randall Johnson and former Peachtree City Mayor Frederick Brown Jr. had pro-SPLOST letters to the editor published in this newspaper.
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