Early voting is underway for the Nov. 7 T-SPLOST referendum and, thus far, few voters have made the trip to the Baldwin County Government Center to cast their ballot.
Baldwin County and the City of Milledgeville are jointly asking voters to support a one-cent sales tax over the next five years for road and bridge improvements. Collection of the tax would start April 1, 2024, and continue until March 31, 2029, or until $45 million is collected, whichever first occurs.
Pursuant to an intergovernmental agreement adopted earlier this year, Baldwin County will receive 65 percent and Milledgeville 35 percent of the net proceeds from the penny tax.
All polling places will be open on the 7th from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Early voting will continue at the Government Center through Saturday of this week as well as Monday through Friday next week. As of this past Wednesday, at 10:30 a.m., only 292 of the county’s 27,580 registered voters, just over one tenth of one percent, had cast ballots, according to Chief Deputy Registrar Randy Morrow with the Baldwin County Board of Registrars.
The referendum is the fourth T-SPLOST attempt in Baldwin County. The first two were unsuccessful multicounty regional referendums, though Baldwin County voters approved the initial effort. In November of 2018, in conjunction with a general election, the county and city sought voter approval of the tax. That try failed by a 53-47 percent margin.
Baldwin County Manager Carlos Tobar said the commissioners are taking a different approach this time.
“There are 443 miles total of roads in the county, and we have a list of roads that total 140 miles, which we should be able to do in five years,” he said. He added that the board members wanted the voters to know what specific projects will be undertaken with the extra one cent. They are listed according to length, longest roads first.
Tohar emphasized there is no specific formula in place to determine the order of work.
However, he did say that road conditions would dictate the priority.
“It’s going to be the worst roads first,” he said.
The five longest roads on the list are Old Monticello/Nelson Road (starting and ending on Highway 22), 11.2 miles in length, Meriwether Road, Harmony Church Road, Pettigrew Road and Nelson Road from Highway 212 to Old Monticello Road.
There are approximately 230 roads and streets on the list.
According to a slide presentation Tobar prepared and shared, only 10 percent of Baldwin County’s operating budget is for discretionary spending. The county manager also noted that the current rate of resurfacing in the county is five miles per year. That work is funded with Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) grants that average $600,000 annually and $400,000 in local SPLOST proceeds.
Assistant County Manager Dawn Hudson confirmed Wednesday morning that the county’s share of the T-SPLOST revenue is projected to be about $6 million annually.
Tobar also pointed out that plans call for $600,000 in T-SPLOST proceeds to be used as a local match for a grant being sought for bridge replacements.
“We’re trying to get $2.4 million in grants to replace three bridges. We would use $600,000 from T-SPLOST to match that,” he explained. “Bridges on Roberts Road NW, Horace Veal Road, and O’Quinns Pond Road would be replaced.”
District 4 commissioner Henry Craig says this county has an opportunity that should not be overlooked.
“Baldwin County is in a unique position,” he stated. “If you go out in the parking lot of the mall, Kroger, downtown, or other such places, you’ll see every county across the state represented in our county, and they’re all spending money here.
“We have a unique opportunity to get about 40 percent of the tax money we can from people who don’t live here. It’s a wonderful opportunity.”
Craig, current president of the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia, acknowledges taxes are a sore subject, but he says the sales tax is the appropriate means of financing road projects.
“If you use property taxes to pay for 40 percent of the roads for the community that don’t live here and another huge percentage that don’t pay property taxes, that’s an unfair burden on our property owners,” he said.
Milledgeville, meanwhile, would receive over $15.5 million if the entire $45 is collected, and City Manager Hank Griffeth said a priority list has been prepared.
“We just recently had all of our streets rated as related to resurfacing, and we will be following it if T-SPLOST does or not pass,” he stated. “Obviously, if it does, we will be able to resurface greater mileage more quickly.”
Griffeth said a rating sheet is being prepared and will be added to the city’s website.
“Our plan is to keep it on the website permanently as a dynamic document that is updated, and folks can go and look at the rating for their street,” Griffeth said.