VARNELL — To meet a deadline to have a new Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) placed on the May 2020 ballot, SPLOST Advisory Committee members may need to to pick up the pace.

At Wednesday night’s meeting at the Edwards Park community center, committee members reviewed a tentative guideline of meeting dates through the end of November, and the consensus was hitting a deadline of the first week of December for recommendations would be a challenge.

“We started out with a pretty aggressive timeline for a May ballot,” committee Chairman Chris Shiflett said. “Based on the structure we set in the beginning, it is becoming evident now that the timeline is going to be pressed. We may very well have to make an adjustment.”

Committee members are considering projects for another SPLOST proposal after voters rejected a proposed six-year, $100 million tax in March. A SPLOST voters passed in 2015 expired on June 30. The committee has set a framework of a four-year, $64 million SPLOST proposal, which would then be forwarded to the county commission. Commissioners would have the final say on what projects would be on a SPLOST ballot.

A SPLOST funds capital and other special projects, and if approved would add a 1% sales tax on most goods and services in the county.

The committee has spent its last four meetings hearing proposals from Whitfield County government agencies — sheriff’s office, fire department and recreation department — in two meetings and discussing the merits of the proposals in two separate meetings. Wednesday night’s meeting saw the committee move all of the county’s recreation department’s SPLOST proposals to the second phase of vetting with the exception of a community center with gymnasiums at Westside Park.

With proposals from other county agencies — public works, animal control, etc. — still to come and with projects pitched by Dalton officials as well as projects for Cohutta, Tunnel Hill and Varnell, time will be a factor in making that deadline. That would be especially true if the committee maintained hearing proposals and discussing them in two separate meetings.

“I think that the majority of our committee members want to make every possible attempt to finish our charge and be able to issue our recommendations to get it on a May ballot, but in order to do that it appears very likely we will have to make some adjustments to our format and our schedule,” Shiflett said.

The county has the largest number of presentations for the committee since the county’s projects receive the majority of SPLOST revenue. Dalton receives nearly a third of the revenue and the remainder goes to projects in the other three municipalities.

At Wednesday’s meeting, county recreation department Director Brian Chastain answered committee questions about the $20 million in projects he had presented at the previous meeting. The list includes $13 million for a proposed Riverbend Park, $5 million in upgrades and improvements to the Miracle Field and Westside Park and $2 million for improvements to Edwards Park, which is currently the county’s largest and most used park.

Committee members were largely in favor of the Riverbend Park on the south end of the county on land across the U.S. 41 bypass from Southeast Whitfield High School. Committee members had asked Chastain to provide more concrete numbers on participation and facilities for each area of the county. For the 2019 baseball/softball season, the south end of the county had 22 teams and the county had three fields they had control of for teams to use. By comparison, the north end of the county had 46 teams with 12 fields at the recreation department’s use. There are no soccer or football fields currently being used for games on the south end of the county.

The elementary and middle school enrollment for the area around Edwards Park is 3,905 students. Enrollment for the area around the proposed Riverbend Park is 3,591.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said committee member Bart Rich. “The southside is running on no football fields, no soccer fields and just three baseball fields. They are very limited. Seeing those numbers brought about an ‘aha’ moment for me. When you look at the future numbers, it shows there is growth on the south end and there really needs to be quality facilities for those children.”

The next committee meeting is Thursday, Sept. 26, at 6 p.m. at Edwards Park.