{"id":6183,"date":"2013-09-22T13:58:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T17:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=6183"},"modified":"2013-09-22T14:08:53","modified_gmt":"2013-09-22T18:08:53","slug":"a-few-notes-on-splost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2013\/09\/22\/a-few-notes-on-splost\/","title":{"rendered":"A few notes on SPLOST"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* Medium Rectangle *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8584504377\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to be covering the issues surrounding the special purpose local option sales tax project list fairly extensively in the lead-up to the November referendum here in Chatham County.<\/p>\n<p>The 1 percent sales tax would begin in fall 2014 and continue for six years. We&#8217;re already paying SPLOST right now &#8212; and have been since 1985. People who live outside Chatham County pay 35 percent or so of the tax.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/exchange\/2013-09-21\/estimated-splost-revenue-too-high-too-low-or-just-right\" target=\"_blank\">my City Talk column today<\/a>, I look at the $370 million estimate for total revenue over those six years. Barring some sort of catastrophic event, that looks like a reasonably conservative estimate. If SPLOST does pass (I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s a tossup right now) and assuming I&#8217;m still writing about issues like this in a couple of years, here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ll be looking for: If SPLOST brings in about $55 million in its first full year of collection, the estimate of $370 million is probably going to be pretty close. I&#8217;d say it&#8217;s likely, however, that we could see something like $57 or $58 million in that first year, in which case the collections would likely hit something closer to $400 million.<\/p>\n<p>I was extremely, almost bitterly frustrated during the current round of SPLOST and during the previous round of ESPLOST that local officials were not revising their estimates downward more aggressively and\/or more quickly. The delays in getting the numbers right were bad politics and, in the case of education infrastructure spending especially, led to some really dubious decisions. So I&#8217;ll be looking at benchmarks very early on during this next collection.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.savannahga.gov\/index.aspx?NID=1174\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> for the city&#8217;s newsy site devoted to SPLOST and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.savannahga.gov\/DocumentCenter\/View\/3424\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a> for the page devoted to the detailed project lists for the city, county, and other local municipalities.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at those lists, I&#8217;m especially struck by how little would be devoted to road projects, which are of course very expensive. We missed our chance to invest in local transportation infrastructure with the sound rejection in summer 2012 of the referendum commonly referred to as T-SPLOST.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/opinion\/2013-09-21\/splost-list-full-accounting#.Uj8q3WT44X4\" target=\"_blank\">Today&#8217;s Savannah Morning News editorial<\/a> notes the need for the county and local municipalities to be as forthcoming and transparent as possible about past, current, and future SPLOST spending. But please note that there&#8217;s an error there. The city&#8217;s site for a proposed new arena is not east of I-16, but <em>west<\/em> of Highway 17. Some maps show that portion of 17 as still being part of 16, but using the interstate as a reference point is a little confusing given that the site is closer to Louisville Road (an extension of Liberty Street) than it is to Gwinnett and given that I-16 slices pretty far east.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve written previously about the proposed site, which is just right down the street from the Georgia State Railroad Museum, SCAD dorms, and other major centers of activity. Here&#8217;s a screenshot from a map:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Screen-shot-2013-09-22-at-1.19.51-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"6184\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2013\/09\/22\/a-few-notes-on-splost\/screen-shot-2013-09-22-at-1-19-51-pm\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Screen-shot-2013-09-22-at-1.19.51-PM-e1379871964547.png?fit=670%2C341\" data-orig-size=\"670,341\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Screen shot 2013-09-22 at 1.19.51 PM\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Screen-shot-2013-09-22-at-1.19.51-PM-e1379871964547.png?fit=300%2C152\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Screen-shot-2013-09-22-at-1.19.51-PM-e1379871964547.png?fit=594%2C302\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Screen-shot-2013-09-22-at-1.19.51-PM-e1379871964547.png?resize=594%2C302\" alt=\"Screen shot 2013-09-22 at 1.19.51 PM\" width=\"594\" height=\"302\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6184\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On that map above, you can see Chatham Steel in the lower left portion. The city does not own the land immediately west of Chatham Steel, although there have been attempts at purchasing it. Just off the map to the west, the city owns a beautiful old municipal building at the corner of Gwinnett and Stiles. The city also owns most of that green space northwest of Chatham Steel off of Stiles. Just across Highway 17, you see SCAD housing and the building with Muse Arts Warehouse. Moving east across Boundary you can see the Roundhouse complex &#8212; the westernmost building along Boundary Street hosted Revival Fest last weekend. The current arena and civic center are on the right edge of this map.<\/p>\n<p>As I&#8217;ve said repeatedly, I think it&#8217;s an excellent site.<\/p>\n<p>Lots more details on the way later . . . . <\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m going to be covering the issues surrounding the special purpose local option sales tax project list fairly extensively in the lead-up to the November referendum here in Chatham County. The 1 percent sales tax would begin in fall 2014&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2013\/09\/22\/a-few-notes-on-splost\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[8],"tags":[718],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Screen-shot-2013-09-22-at-1.19.51-PM-e1379871964547.png?fit=670%2C341","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-1BJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6183"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}