MOULTRIE, Ga. — Early voting is under way now as county voters determine whether to add a penny per dollar sales tax to help fund local transportation efforts.

The Transportation Local Option Sales Tax is the only question on the county-wide ballot. Election Day is Nov. 7, but early voting started Oct. 16.

Colquitt County currently has a sales tax rate of 7 cents per dollar — 4 cents to the state, 2 to the school board (a Local Option Sales Tax for operations and an Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for capital projects) and 1 in Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax divided among the county and its municipalities for their capital projects. The question on the current ballot is whether to raise that to 8 cents per dollar. The added penny would pay for road, bridge and other transportation projects in the county and its municipalities.

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 has 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, 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.”