Gilmer County commissioners voted to add a local TSPLOST question to the ballot in November.
The unanimous vote came during a special called meeting May 20.
A Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax is a one cent sales tax which will be dedicated to transportation needs in the county. The added cent would bring the county sales tax to eight 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. “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.”
He said there is 503 miles of roads to maintain in Gilmer County, and there is a moratorium on bringing new roads in the system because of the limited funds.
Gilmer County voters nixed a local TSPLOST in 2020.
“I am not one to try to bring something back when it’s been rejected,” Paris said. “I am just frustrated because they rejected it at the polls, but they still want the roads paved.”
He said if a regional TSPLOST ever gets passed it would negate the ability for the county to pass a local TSPLOST.
“As much as I wish we could have a local TSPLOST, I am adamantly opposed to a regional TSPLOST because I feel like we would just be shipping our dollars to the bigger counties.”
Post Commissioner John Marshall said the last TSPLOST was proposed and then COVID hit.
“As an observer, TSPLOST just didn’t get any attention,” he said. “It was just something that was on the ballot. Everybody was worried about other things of historical proportions.”
Marshall said it might have had a better chance if someone was advocating for the measure.
Post Commissioner Hubert Parker said the TSPLOST should be used to maintain the current roads in the county system and not bring in new roads.
“We got more than we can do now with what we have,” he said.
Paris agreed the TSPLOST would not be used to add roads to the county maintenance system.
Commissioners must still approach Ellijay and East Ellijay boards about being part of the measure, but Paris said he had spoken with one mayor and felt both cities would be in favor.
Staff will now work on a project list of what to accomplish with the sales tax money if the TSPLOST passes.
In 2020, it was estimated a local TSPLOST would bring in $4 million a year over a five-year period, for a total of $20 million.
One benefit of a TSPLOST the board discussed was the portion of the sales tax which would be paid by visitors to the county. It would help spread the burden of maintaining the roads from just property tax paying residents.
Several items would be exempt from a local TSPLOST, including fuel, certain categories of groceries and prescription drugs.
“We all know that the roads are heavily traveled by out-of-county visitors,” said Gilmer County Attorney David Clark.
Paris referenced a study he said ranked effective property tax rates across the state. Gilmer County was third lowest in the state.
“All I ever hear is, ‘you are taxing us to death, you are taxing us to death,’ but the fact of the matter is we are either the third, fourth or fifth lowest of the 159 counties in the state,” he said.
Paris said there were also some expenditures coming up on bridges in the county, which the TSPLOST could be used for as well.