The Habersham County Commission is discussing bringing a TSPLOST back to the citizens for a vote in November. The county last brought a TSPLOST to a vote in 2018, which citizens did not pass.
In order to have a TSPLOST, a county must have a SPLOST in place. Banks, Rabun and Lumpkin Counties currently have a TSPLOST enacted.
A Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or TSPLOST, is an additional one-percent sales tax that allocates those collected tax dollars to transportation-related county projects. For Habersham, those projects would center around roads and bridges.
The commission is referring to the TSPLOST as a “Roads and Bridges SPLOST.”
“We feel like that really does a better job of describing what it would be for Habersham County,” County Manager Alicia Vaughn said. “We would want the majority of this money to be spent on roads and bridges and maintenance of our roads, road construction, culverts, that kind of thing.”
Vaughn says that due to project backlog and lack of funding for maintaining county roads, the county should consider the TSPLOST.
“We have deteriorating infrastructure, we have project backlogs, … we have a list of work orders that we cannot get to,” Vaughn said. “Some of the reasons are because we don’t have enough staff, but certainly a lot of the reasons are we don’t have enough funding.”
The county estimates the additional sales tax could bring in a total of $40 to $45 million dollars over the course of the five-year TSPLOST. Vaughn says it would allow the county to redistribute SPLOST funds that the county would have allocated to the road and bridge-related projects to cover other capital projects.
The TSPLOST funds could be shared with county municipalities solely on an intergovernmental agreement basis.
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According to Habersham County Public Works Director Jerry Baggett, the county currently does not have any allocated general funds for road repaving. Road paving, Vaughn says, is currently paid for through LMIG and SPLOST.
Baggett says that 50 percent of Habersham’s paved roads are in good condition, 25 percent are in fair condition, and 25 percent are in poor condition. He says that 100 percent of Habersham’s dirt and gravel roads are in poor condition.
He says that the estimated cost of taking care of the county’s roads and bridges, as well as equipment to maintain them, in 2022 is $26 million. The road department is slated to receive $18 million for SPLOST.
“Getting this TSPLOST would allow us to make up for that $7.9 million deficit that we currently have,” Baggett said. That deficit does not include the cost of making new or repaving old roads.
Bagget says it would cost about $1.1 million to repave one mile of road.
Commissioner Dustin Mealor expressed his interest in using TSPLOST funds to improve the safety of GA-365, but at this time there is no confirmation is it would be legal to use TSPLOST funds on a state road.
If the commission decides to move forward with putting the TSPLOST up for a vote, they’ll have to enact their referendum by July to have it on the ballot. The county will need to make a complete list of projects and costs, as well as schedule educational community opportunities regarding the TSPLOST, before then.
Georgia Department of Transportation representatives met Tuesday night with local government officials to discuss transportation projects in the area. Among the items they discussed was the possible use of TSPLOST funds for work on GA 365.
GDOT also announced during Tuesday’s meeting it has decided to build a roundabout at the intersection of GA 197 and GA 385/SR 17 in Clarkesville. Now Habersham will have more on the development of that project coming up later today. Check back here for updates.
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