City, County Agree On SPLOST Distribution

By
MARY ANN ANDERSON
The City of Hazlehurst and Jeff Davis County have amicably arrived at an agreement on how SPLOST funds will be divided between the local governments.
Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or the more shortened version SPLOST, is used over a six-year span for myriad community capital projects, among them maintaining water and sewer facilities, repairing roads, funding the hospital and providing renovations on public buildings. Voters will decide whether to accept or reject SPLOST on November’s ballot.
Jeff Davis County Board of Commissioners called a special meeting for last Tuesday at Jeff Davis County Courthouse for negotiations in response to a counterproposal submitted by the city council. That meeting came directly after the city council held another called meeting at City Hall scheduled just a half-hour before.
Mayor Bayne Stone and each of the city council members, including Ward 1’s Dywane Johnson, Ward 2’s John Ramay, Diane Leggett from Ward 3 and John Bloodworth from Ward 4 attended the meeting, as did most members of the Board of Commissioners, among them Hank Hobbs from the Blackburn District, Vann Wooten of the Ocmulgee District, James Benjamin of the Hazlehurst District and Ricky Crosby from the Altamaha District. County Attorney Andy Ramay and Commissioner James Emory Tate of the Whitehead District missed the meeting.
Of the approximately $13 million that SPLOST is expected to generate over the next six years, the county originally wanted $10 million with $2.5 million going to the city. In its counterproposal, the city asked for $3.3 million.
Stone said that even if the city were to receive that amount, “I can assure you this will not cover our needs.”
He said that while the city does cover high-traffic roads, that it’s been more than 25 years since lesser roads were repaired or paved. In noting another reason the city wants more money, the mayor said, was to earmark a half-million dollars for storm drainage projects.
“The city is flat,” he said. “We need to work with storm drainage within the city badly to get our people healthy. It’s not good.”
Hobbs explained that giving the city an additional 3 percent increase over the 2018 SPLOST would bring the amount it would receive to $3,047,500, an amount the county considered “gracious,” but still falling $252,500 short of the $3.3 million for which the city had counter proposed. Instead of offering the city the full $252,500, Hobbs said the county would instead give a half-percent, or about $126,000, in the city’s coffers.
“We just have to give a half-percent somewhere,” Hobbs noted. “You know as well as I do that SPLOST will be more. The biggest thing with us, is the more camaraderie we show, the better it’s going to be anticipated when folks go to the polls.”
The city council was pleased with the offer, with Stone saying that he was “extremely encouraged,” adding, “We’re all thinking alike, and we appreciate that.”
That’s when Sheriff Preston Bohannon asked to put in his “two cents’ worth.” He said that his department’s budget had included an expense of $200,000 for repeaters to be placed through the county for public safety. His concern was that giving the city more money could take away funds for the repeaters for the E-911 system, which in turn could cause missed vital contact between the E-911 center and his deputies, ambulances, EMTS or firefighters working in the far reaches of the county.
But Hobbs assured Bohannon that the county has “76-1/2 percent of the total SPLOST” to find the money for the repeaters.
“We don’t need to let this public safety communications issue fall on deaf ears,” Bohannon responded. “That’s my position.”
Hobbs again reassured Bohannon, “Sometimes you have to rob Peter to pay Paul. We’ll figure out how to make it work.”
No vote was taken in the meeting to finalize the numbers, with Hobbs noting in a post-interview with the Ledger that the county was following Association County Commissioners of Georgia and Georgia Legislature’s SPLOST guidelines, recommendations and checklists for intergovernmental agreements. Hobbs added that the figures would be “put on the table,” and then would be voted on at a later date by the city and county in separate meetings.