At a county commission work session, Gilmer County Chair Charlie Paris gave a short update on how the shelter in place order affected county government.
His concern is primarily for the capital budget which is funded through sales tax with the SPLOST. Gilmer County’s maintenance and operations budget is mainly funded through a different stream, mostly property taxes.
“That’s one of the main reasons we put a halt on any capital spending that was not already committed,” Paris said.
It takes 30 days to get a picture of the previous month. At the end of April they received March numbers.
March sales tax was up 5 percent over the previous year, Paris said. But, he said it was not a full month of sheltering in place, so April and May were of more concern.
“What we were waiting for was the end of May,” he said.
April’s numbers are in, and Paris said they were up slightly over 2019.
May’s numbers will be telling. Paris said if they do not show a major drop, the county may have weathered the storm fairly well during the shelter in place order.
Capital spending is still on hold, Paris said.
“Right now, we are not far enough along that we can just breathe freely,” he said.
Paris was adamant that the debt service payment of $4 million a year for the courthouse will not be affected. He said the first half has been paid already and the second part is ready to go, as well as the whole payment for 2021 and the first payment of 2022.
“That’s a lot to be taken off your mind, so to speak,” he said. “We’ve always tried to carve out the money for the debt service first.”
One place where sales taxes were down was in the hospitality industry.
“We did get a hard hit on the hotel/motel tax,” Paris said. “The Chamber of Commerce took a bigger hit.”
Gilmer County Chamber President and CEO Paige Green Hutto said the hotel/motel did take a hit.
“Thankfully, it was not as bad as we thought it would be,” she said. “We were only down about 2 percent for the month of March.”
April was much worse, with the chamber receiving $9,000 this year compared to $31,000 in April 2019.
“Which, obviously, does hurt our ability to market the community,” she said.
Hutto said the organization has the ability to be flexible and was not spending on marketing during the shelter in place order, which would have been inappropriate.
Last Saturday, the organization reopened the downtown welcome center, which resumes regular hours — 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. The main chamber office is maintaining normal hours, as well.
Hutto said the numbers look good for June and they are hoping to make up ground.