This money is our money, the taxpayers pay this and expect good stewardship.
On December 30, 2022, the city and county came to an agreement of distribution for the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) revenue received by the county under various Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), Transportation Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST), or other Option Sales Tax referendums with an increase sales tax of a penny, voted on and passed by the citizens of the county and city. The last Option Sales Tax referendum for TSPLOST was passed by a vote by the citizens on November 3,2021 for $58,000,000.00 to end in 2027.
The current amount expected to be split by the city and county for FY 23 is $13 Million dollars. This agreement is for ten years, which would equal $130,000,000.00 over a ten-year period if each year revenue is at $13,000,000.00. The split percentage below in the signed agreement between the city and county spans over the next ten years to begin on January 1, 2023 and to end on Dec 31, 2032. Each citizen's (including children and adults) portion paid for an extra penny would be $1,931.47 over the next ten years. If you have a family of four then your portion of paid tax would be $7,725.88 over ten years.
What is Local Option Sales Tax? LINK HERE
The Last SPLOST approved was in November 2015 and collected $61,606,928.00 from 2016 to 2022. See link Here for
From 2008 to 2021, the citizens of the city/county voted to pass Local Option Sales Tax referendums in the amount of $152,400,000.000. Reminder: the amount voted on is usually exceeded by more than the amount on the referendum voted on by the citizenry.
Total current Census data states the county and city have a combined total population of 67,306, if you take the current TOTAL based of $152 million divided by 67,306, each citizen paid an average of $2,258.34 per total referendums passed.
This does not take into account the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) from March of 2007 to June 2020 in the total amount of collected from the citizens of Spalding County was
$ 211,448,285.00.
If EPLOST total of $ 211,448,285.00 added to the current total of city/county $152 Million the combined amount would total $363,448,285.00 (three hundred sixty three million for 15 years) and for 67,306 residents, per person tax would be $5,399.93 per citizen (adults and children) for a family of four the amount would be $21,599.72 per family, amount is from 2007 to 2022 voted and passed referendum volunteer sales tax totals. (Does not include Property Taxes)
___________________________________________________________________
SEE SPLIT AGREEMENT and County AFTER AGENDA BELOW:
After Agenda Board of Commissioners -https://www.spaldingcounty.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2022-12-30-SpecialCalledMeetingAfterAgenda-2.pdf
Special Called Meeting December 30, 2022 3:30 PM Room 108, Annex Building The Spalding County Board of Commissioners held a Special Called Emergency Meeting on Friday, December 30, 2022, in Room 108 of the Spalding County Annex Building, beginning at 3:30 p.m. with Chairman Clay Davis presiding. Commissioners James Dutton, Gwen Flowers-Taylor and Ryan Bowlden were present for the meeting. Also present were County Manager, Dr. Steve Ledbetter, County Attorney, Stephanie Windham and County Clerk, Kathy Gibson to record the minutes.
I. OPENING (CALL TO ORDER) PLEASE SILENCE YOUR CELL PHONES AND ALL OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES.
Chairman Davis then advised that this emergency meeting was called for the purpose of discussion regarding LOST negotiations with the City of Griffin. The Open Meetings Law allows for emergency meetings to be called with less than 24 hours’ notice to the public and the media.
The reason for the shortened notice must be included in the minutes of the meeting. The emergent nature of this meeting is due to a lack of time to complete these negotiations, given our deadline of December 30 to present to the Georgia Department of Revenue for approval.
II. INVOCATION Commissioner James Dutton, District #2, delivered the Invocation.
III. PLEDGE TO FLAG Commissioner Ryan Bowlden, District #4 led the Pledge to the Flag.
Motion/Second by Dutton Flowers-Taylor to amend the agenda to remove item
#1 the Executive Session under Agenda items from consideration. Motion carried unanimously by all. IV. AGENDA ITEMS 1. Consider request to conduct an Executive Session for consultation with the county attorney, or other legal counsel, to discuss pending or potential litigation, settlement, claims, administrative proceedings, or other judicial actions brought or to be brought by or against the county or any officer or employee or in which the county or any officer or employee may be directly involved as provided in O.C.G.A. § 50-14-2(1) (CROSSED OUT, STRICKEN NO EMERGENCY SESSION HELD)
2. Discussion and vote on proposed LOST distribution.
Chairman Davis advised that most of the Board has just come from the City of Griffin’s session in which they approved our latest distribution offer. We are very thankful for that. He then asked the Board if they have any comments.
Commissioner Johnson thanked the City of Griffin for working with the County to come to an agreement on the LOST distribution. She hopes that we can now begin to rebuild our relationship as it is important for the citizens. Our relationship with the City is very important and we get a lot done together. She thanked the County Manager and staff for the town hall meetings the county hosted to educate the public on the LOST. She feels it was beneficial on all levels. She then thanked Commissioner Dutton for suggesting the last proposal and the entire Board for coming together and bringing this to an end.
Commissioner Bowlden had no comment.
Commissioner Flowers-Taylor stated that the County governments are going to have to contact their Legislators and get this legislation fixed. The current legislation pits Cities and Counties against one another every ten years and that is not a good thing. Cities and Counties spend years building relationships just for those relationships to be burned by an action the legislators have taken. There should be a simple formula for determining LOST and hopefully before the next negotiation the legislators will work this out. She encouraged everyone on the board to contact our local legislators and ask them to work toward a better resolution for the LOST.
Stephanie Windham advised that she had talked with the General Council for the Georgia Department of Revenue on the 22nd of December. He was calling all the counties who had not yet turned in their Certificate of Distribution and he asked for her opinion on the LOST process. Ms. Windham stated that she shared exactly what Commissioner Flowers-Taylor had just said and he indicated that he was hearing that from every other county that he had talked with that day. Everyone seems to know that the LOST legislation is broken and she feels it is very important that we do whatever we can to fix it.
Dr. Ledbetter then stated that he had talked with Bill Twomey at ACCG and during the conversation they talked about a legislative study group to stand up for this challenge and he encouraged each of the Board members to reach out to our legislative representatives and encourage them to stand this legislative study group up, because this is detrimental to every community in our state.
Commissioner Dutton stated that Commissioner Flowers-Taylor expressed his sentiments. He then thanked the Board for all of the hard work they have done, the community meetings and the outreach. Looking at the numbers, taking the heart out of it and letting the head lead. He also wanted to thank the City for doing the same. This kind of thing is hard, it is designed by the State to be hard. We work hard with Archway and as individuals to build relationships. Even the counties that had their splits settled back in July have a number of bridges burned there.
So, it wasn’t just us at the last minute. He then thanked Dr. Ledbetter for his work on this. The level of transparency is unequaled, and we appreciate everything that you do. He then stated that it is his hope that in spite of all the misinformation that was spread that we can move forward. We need to realize that we need to continue to do what is right for the citizens of Spalding County. At the end of the day most of the issues aren’t city vs. county, republican vs. democrat, most of the things to do are what is right for the citizens of Spalding County.
Clay Davis then thanked the Board for each of the different things that have been done to make this come together. Our being able to talk to one another even though we didn’t always see the same way. To be able to say: “I understand and I respect your view.” That is not easily done and thank you for that. He then thanked the City of Griffin for their efforts in making this come together. He thanked Mayor Hollberg for his willingness to continue conversations with him, it was very helpful and he appreciates it a great deal.
He thanked Dr. Ledbetter for the multiple town hall meetings. For providing document after document as they were changed and then turning around and reworking the numbers every time the Board wanted to look at them in a different manner. He then thanked the citizens who elected the board. He thanked the County Attorney for keeping the Board on the “straight and narrow.”
Dr. Ledbetter then advised that the County has just received notice from Jonathan Ussery, the Assistant Director for the Local Government Services Division at the Department of Revenue, they are in in receipt of our Certificated of Distribution. So, we are in compliance.
V. ADJOURNMENT Motion/Second by Johnson/Flowers-Taylor to adjourn the meeting at 3:44 p.m. motion carried unanimously by all
Legal Minutes will follow after they are approved by the County Board of Commissioners and City Commissioners respectively.
Comments