MOULTRIE, Ga. — For Doerun, the passage of a penny tax for transportation would resurface nearly every street in the city and allow for the expansion of an exercise trail.

Countywide it would fund resurfacing of nearly one-third of Colquitt County’s 555 miles of paved roadways. It also would allow the county to pay for some roadway and equipment maintenance with sales tax, allowing it to keep property tax rates from increasing.

County residents will cast ballots on the issue on Nov. 7, and if they approve the transportation special purpose local option sales tax it would go into effect on April 1, 2018, and last for five years.

A number of Doerun’s residents take advantage of the cooler nighttime hours to walk, putting them on the streets in the dark, said Doerun City Supervisor Kevin Branch.

“That’s what I’m concerned about,” he said. “There’s a lot of folks who walk in town.”

The new fitness trail for walkers and bicyclists would incorporate the present paved track at J.C. Fincher Park and extend it to a route around a piece of city-owned property. Altogether the new trail would be about 2,000 feet long and is an $18,000 item in the city’s anticipated proceeds of $407,431 — Doerun’s share with 1.7 percent of the county’s population.

“That will make it a little more safe,” Branch said. “We could have some lights down there and the patrolman can keep a watch down there.”

The remainder of the city’s share would go toward road resurfacing and improvement projects, including nearly all of the main streets in town.

“We’ll be able to get just about all our roads paved with the tax,” Branch said. “We’re trying to get our roads fixed. It’s for the betterment of the community.”

For county-maintained paved roads, the transportation tax would pave an estimated 170 miles of roadway. With 62.4 percent of the population, the unincorporated area of the county would receive the largest share at just under $15 million, followed by Moultrie at $7.4 million, $511,658 for Norman Park, followed by Doerun.

The cities of Berlin, Funston and Ellenton would receive an estimated $290,045, $236,352, and $147,917, respectively. Of the remainder, $750,000 is earmarked for Moultrie Municipal Airport improvements, $550,000 for the joint Parks and Recreation Authority and $250,000 for the Colquitt County Hospital Authority, which would be used for resurfacing the parking facilities at the hospital.

Although the estimated tax receipts would resurface roughly 31 percent of the county’s roadways, it would come over a 5-year period, County Administrator Chas Cannon said.

Still, it would put the county in a position — should the voters extend the tax for four consecutive times — to refurbish nearly every road over a 20-year period. The reason it may not complete all of it is because although roads are rated to last 20 years, the county’s experience has been that their useful life is instead 15.

“We’re going to have more and more people on the roads and more trucks,” Cannon said.

Still, it would go a long way compared to the few miles of roadway funded by the state each year.

Over the life of the tax, about $5 million would go toward maintaining the shoulders of roads by mowing and chemical spraying of  roadside weeds.

“That money, that $5 million range, (is) a transportation-related item paid for with sales tax, rather than property tax,” Cannon said.

Shifting costs of roadside maintenance currently funded through property taxes to the sales tax revenue will allow the county to maintain the same property tax rate, he said.

Colquitt County Commission has cut the millage rate — which determines the amount residents pay on their property– for the previous three years.

Unlike a regional transportation tax proposal that failed several years ago, if voters give this one their support in the fall, all proceeds will remain in Colquitt County.

“A lot of counties have been raising taxes,” Cannon said. “TSPLOST is all about resurfacing county roads and trying to keep the millage rate the same. What we’re trying to do is establish a stable, long-term tax rate.”