BOC scrambles to get SPLOST on February ballot
Comer, Ila move to grab bigger piece of pie
BY ZACH MITCHAM
Madison County leaders hurried to finalize ballot language for a February sales tax referendum Wednesday after learning this past week that the official deadline for submittal to the state has already passed.
If the late request is not accepted by the state, then the county will not have a sales tax vote on Feb. 5 as originally planned.
County attorney Mike Pruett sent a letter to county commissioners Friday, informing them that the actual deadline for submitting a special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) question was Nov. 1, not Nov. 15, as commissioners originally thought.
“I spoke today with Prof. Ray Cobb at Kennessaw State University, who is coordinating ballot printing for Georgia (through the Secretary of State’s Office), and he says that this information was disseminated to elections superintendents and boards quite some time ago,” wrote Pruett. “County Clerk Morris Fortson tells me that the Madison County Elections Superintendent never forwarded this information (the Nov. 1 deadline) to his office.”
But Pruett said that there is still hope of getting the ballots printed in time.
“Only a few companies can prepare computer-voting ballots, and they are all very busy now because this is a presidential election year,” wrote Pruett. “Georgia made a deal with Diebold to the effect that Diebold will prepare those Georgia ballots it receives by Nov. 15 before it starts work on the California ballots. Any Georgia ballots it receives after Nov. 15 go to the back of the line…”
Pruett noted that if the BOC could finalize its SPLOST ballot language by its meeting Wednesday, Nov. 7, it could submit its proposal to the state by Nov. 8 and “if everything goes perfectly, it will make it to Diebold on time.”
So the county commissioners finalized their SPLOST revenue breakdown Wednesday (see box on the front page). The BOC agreed Wednesday that more money was needed for roads over the next six years. So they agreed to reduce funding to the recreation department by $300,000 to provide more road funding. They also agreed to cover the purchase of patrol cars and ambulances next year through a lease agreement, rather than tagging SPLOST money to those purchases, a move that freed up another $395,000 for roads. The projected road spending over the next six years will be close to $4 million. The county allocated over $8 million for roads in the 2003 SPLOST.
Though commissioner Bruce Scogin suggested the BOC cut the allotment for the IDA from $1.19 million to $750,000, the board agreed to keep the IDA funding at the same level, noting that a Hull sewer system is needed and that the county desperately needs to seek a surface water source, such as Brush Creek or Seagraves Lake.
While the figures for county projects were tweaked Wednesday, a focal point of discussion was the debate over how money tagged to cities would be allocated over the next six years.
The cities of Ila, Comer and Hull stand to get a bigger hunk of the SPLOST funding pie if money is divvied up according to city populations. For instance, Comer will gain roughly $100,000 more in sales tax funding under a population-based arrangement than if a formula already used to disburse revenues from the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) is used.
Meanwhile, Carlton, Colbert and Danielsville would get more money if an already established formula for dividing tax revenues between municipalities is used. For instance, Danielsville will receive at least $80,000 less with a population formula as opposed to the LOST arrangement.
By law, not all councils have to agree on how to split tax money. Instead, it’s a “majority rules” system. So, if leaders of cities with at least 50 percent of the municipal population in the county agree on how to divide funds, then they dictate the funding formula.
With that knowledge, three councils moved quickly this past week to approve a joint resolution to ensure that the population-based formula is used. The city of Comer initiated that alliance. The Comer City Council sent notice to this newspaper at 7:35 p.m. Friday that they would meet at 6:45 p.m. Saturday night to discuss SPLOST. During that meeting, they approved an intergovernmental agreement to establish SPLOST funding based on population. But Comer needed Ila to join in to make the resolution legally binding. So Ila attorney Pat Graham of Graham Law Firm presented the Ila council with the Comer/Ila resolution Monday night. The city of Ila stands to gain at least $30,000 more in sales tax money if a population-based formula is used.
The Ila council agreed to approve Comer’s resolution by a 3-1 vote. Councilman Nathaniel Hobbs provided the lone “no” vote to the joint resolution, saying he feared the cities could end up being left out of SPLOST funding entirely.
“I’ll have no part of it – I reject this,” Hobbs said. “I feel like it’s wrong – we all stand to gain more than we’ve ever had anyway…this is based on greed between cities…Comer wants to press this issue.”
The Carlton City Council, which will actually receive a little less money under the population-based formula, as opposed to the LOST arrangement, also agreed Monday to join with Comer and Ila in seeking a population-based allocation. Commissioner Wesley Jordan said Wednesday that Carlton leaders simply aimed to ensure that the cities weren’t cut out of the sales tax revenues all together.
The Colbert City Council didn’t vote on an intergovernmental agreement Monday night, voting instead to give Mayor John Waggoner the power to negotiate on the city’s behalf regarding SPLOST arrangements. Colbert would gain at least $40,000 more if the LOST formula was used and Waggoner recently suggested to the BOC that the cities use the already-established funding method.
The Hull City Council did not meet this week; Hull’s allotment remains nearly the same under either funding arrangement.
The speedy Comer/Ila/Carlton resolution did not go over well with other city leaders or with the county commissioners Wednesday night.
“The greedy ones got it,” said Danielsville Mayor Glenn Cross during the meeting. … I hate that three cities got real greedy about the whole thing. It’s going to cause bad feelings between the cities.”
Danielsville leaders say they feel their city will “get the short end of the stick” if the population formula is used, instead of the LOST formula. They note that Danielsville’s “daytime” population rises dramatically on workdays with school, county government, and other employees coming into town. Danielsville businesses have also grown from 32 in 1996 to 77 this year, Danielsville councilman Roger Watson pointed out, during an Oct. 31 meeting.
“We’re (Danielsville) generating the most sales tax money and hurting the worst of any,” said Watson.
While Colbert and Danielsville both stand to lose out on some funding, mayors of both towns said they will ultimately go along with the population-based formula because they don’t want to lose out on all SPLOST funding.
“I’m very disappointed in it, but I’m not an idiot,” said Waggoner. “And we would have to sign on with the intergovernmental agreement, even though I don’t like it. But I think this is a good example of good, old-fashioned backroom politics.”
The BOC also voted to approve the population-based arrangement Wednesday, acknowledging that an intergovernmental agreement is needed.
But commissioner Jordan said he was disappointed with how the arrangement was drawn.
“I feel like it’s been ramrodded down my throat,” said Jordan. “There’s a lot of other people who feel the same way, too.”
Commissioner Stanley Thomas said he didn’t feel good about the way the arrangement was made. He said he also feels the BOC should have moved earlier to make SPLOST preparations and possibly avoided some of the complications now evident. He said the board needs to do better the next go-around.
“We’ve got six years to plan,” he said. “We shouldn’t try to do it in six days.”
Thomas and Waggoner both asked about legal representation in the SPLOST matter, with Thomas noting that Victor Johnson of Graham Law Firm, who serves as city attorney for both Comer and Danielsville — as well as the industrial authority attorney — is caught on two sides of the fence on the issue, since the two cities have conflicting opinions on how the SPLOST revenues should be distributed. Meanwhile, Pat Graham, also of Graham Law Firm, serves as city attorney for Ila and Hull.
“I’ve made no opinion on which way is the best way to distribute the money,” said Johnson. “Because that’s not a legal issue; that’s a policy issue.”
— Margie Richards and Ben Munro contributed to this report.
