Pending approval by the boards of Ellijay and East Ellijay, an agreement has been reached on the split for a proposed TSPLOST.
Gilmer County commissioners voted at a special called meeting in May to add a TSPLOST to the ballot this November.
A Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax is a 1 cent sales tax which will be dedicated to transportation needs in the county. The added cent would bring the county sales tax to 8 cents on the dollar. It would last for five years.
“Everybody in the county wants their road paved, I don’t think anybody wants to pay for it,” said Gilmer County Chair Charlie Paris when he proposed the TSPLOST at the May meeting.
“The requests that I am getting both to pave roads and repave roads and to bring roads into the system which are not in the county system used to be very polite. Folks are getting very aggressive now.”
If passed, Ellijay Mayor Al Hoyle agreed to take a 6 percent stake of the TSPLOST, and East Ellijay Mayor Don Callihan agreed to a 3.5 percent share, leaving 90.5 percent to the county. Ellijay and East Ellijay councils have to approve the split before it is a done deal.
In the regular SPLOST which is in place now, the county receives 92 percent, Ellijay receives 6 percent and East Ellijay receives 2 percent.
Paris said it will take Gilmer County an estimated 50 years to make sure all 503 miles of road maintained by the county are paved. He said the TSPLOST could allow the county to perform the same paving in an estimated 10 years.
Another reason he wants to enact a local TSPLOST is to exempt the county from any possible regional TSPLOST.
“Just be proactive and do the local TSPLOST and get ourselves out of any threat of finding ourselves in a regional TSPLOST,” he said.
Paris is opposed to a regional TSPLOST. He said he feels it would take money out of the county and send it to larger counties for paving.
“This would be the absolute least harmful, if you will, means of raising the funds necessary to get the roads back into good shape,” Paris said.
Much of the sales tax would be paid by visitors to the county, he said.
Several items would be exempt from a local TSPLOST, including fuel, certain categories of groceries and prescription drugs.
Gilmer County residents will vote on the TSPLOST on the November ballot.