City Must Wait For Promised County Money For The Library
That $120,000 the Jackson County Board of Commissioners voted to send to Commerce for the library’s capital fund drive?
The check isn’t exactly in the mail.
Jackson County sent the city $54,576 and promised the rest as the SPLOST revenue dedicated to libraries trickles in over the next four or five years, said Mayor Charles L. “Buzzie” Hardy Jr.
The way the mayor sees it, Jackson County had $175,000 in library SPLOST money on hand when it voted last spring to give $120,000 to Commerce for its library expansion. Then, other libraries made requests, which the commissioners also granted. Rather than send Commerce the full amount promised ASAP as the city hoped, the county parceled out the money it had among all of the requests and issued an IOU for the rest.
“That’s just the kind of politics she likes to play,” said Hardy, referring to the delay.
BOC Chairman Pat Bell explained the situation in a letter to Hardy, suggesting that allocating the whole $120,000 would create cash flow problems and saying that historically, the BOC divvied up SPLOST money on a “percentage basis.”
