City officials upset about SPLOST timeline

Published 9:30 am Thursday, January 5, 2017

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — Milledgeville City Council members are crying foul on the projected timeline for the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum vote.

A special election date of Tuesday, March 21 has been proposed for city and county voters to decide whether or not to extend the 1-cent sales tax for another five years.

In a joint meeting of city and county officials held Tuesday, city leaders expressed concern that they haven’t had enough time to prioritize a list of SPLOST projects and that the proposed election date is too early.

“March, through history, has been the best election time to ask for approval of SPLOST,” Buddy Welch an attorney, who is acting in the capacity of a consultant to the county, said.

Welch said that officials could call for the election in November.

“The key to it is that you do not want a lapse in your election of SPLOST funds,” Welch said.

In order to assure that would not happen, Welch suggested that March would be the best option.

Baldwin County Commission Chairman Sammy Hall said Tuesday was the last day that meetings could be held between the two local governing bodies on the issue.

The commission chairman said even if local government officials had met jointly before Tuesday, they still would have been confronted with a Feb. 7 deadline to call for an election.

Hall said the Feb. 7 deadline wasn’t a surprise.

“Y’all knew the SPLOST negotiation was coming, so it wasn’t a surprise,” Hall said, noting that the county had been working on its list of sales tax projects. “We’ve been talking about our list for a long time.”

Denese Shinholster, mayor pro-tem, said city officials had to wait for the county to set the meeting.

“We’re saying as far as this meeting, and then given a deadline,” Shinholster said. “This meeting should have taken place, because we’ve asked for it.”

Hall assured her that the proposed election date could be changed.

“If I’m not mistaken, the T-SPLOST (transportation special purpose local option sales tax) is going to be on the referendum in November,” Hall said. “And you don’t want two [sales tax items] on the same referendum.”

Welch said it was just a matter of them getting together and getting their projects together.

“If y’all can do that, we can certainly move on,” Welch said.

Hall told everyone at Tuesday’s meeting that the county was ready to go.

“I think the next step is, if y’all will appoint your committee, we’re ready now,” Hall said. “If an apology is necessary for the shortness of time, then I’ll offer that. But I think that the time restraint is not as big as it might appear.”

Hall, who was joined by fellow commissioners Emily Davis, Tommy French, Henry Craig and Johnny Westmoreland, said the county had talked about what it wanted to do with SPLOST monies for several months.

“And I feel sure that the city already has some ideas about what they want to do with SPLOST monies as well,” Hall said.

A government retreat is being planned soon so city officials can discuss in broader detail a list of SPLOST projects, Thrower said.

“I would assume that maybe we wouldn’t be ready to submit a list or anything else until that point in time,” Thrower said.

Welch suggested that city officials get back with county officials to let them know when they can meet and they would go from there.

The key to the referendum’s success is getting organized, Welch said.

City and county officials will have to formulate an intergovernmental agreement, he added.

The county commissioners have appointed a group to negotiate the agreement process, Welch said.

“What we would ask the city to do is to appoint a committee to work with us,” Welch said.

Other important steps down the road include informing the public and then getting voters out to the polls.

He pointed out that there are several other critical timelines.

They include establishing an intergovernmental agreement between the city and county governments and then approving it.

“The commissioners have to call for the election, and the last day for that is Feb. 7, 2017,” Welch said.

Then on Feb. 8, county officials have to deliver the resolution to Baldwin County Elections Superintendent Todd A. Blackwell, who would then call for the election the next day, Feb. 9.

Welch said he believes local officials can move quickly as soon as the intergovernmental agreement is reached.