State to punish areas that don't pass sales tax

The optional tax marks a change in how Georgia envisions funding roads and other transportation related projects.

“You’re going to hear more and more about that,” advised Shane Short, president of the Jackson County Area Chamber of Commerce, speaking last Friday morning to his board of directors. “That is how the state of Georgia has chosen to address its transportation funding needs in the future. If it fails, they say there is no Plan B.”

Legislation approved by the 2009 General Assembly created 12 regional “roundtables” through which transportation projects would be selected and in which separate referenda would be held. Hunter Bicknell, chairman of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners, chairs the Northeast Georgia Transportation Roundtable. Other counties include Barrow, Madison, Athens-Clarke, Oconee, Oglethorpe, Jasper, Newton, Walton, Greene, Elbert and Morgan — the roundtables are aligned with the state’s 12 regional commissions.
That group is charged with developing a list of projects to be funded by the tax — which would last 10 years before coming up for another vote.

Bicknell notes that the state has backed local governments into a funding corner.

“This is the way that transportation is going to be funded,” he said. “This is Plan A. There is no Plan B.”

Currently, said Bicknell, 32 percent of the Department of Transportation’s revenue — derived mostly from a motor fuels tax that has not been raised in decades — goes to pay debt.

“That doesn’t leave a whole lot of money for new projects,” he added.

And areas that fail to go along with the new plan will pay a price for it. If members of a roundtable cannot reach an agreement on a list of projects to be submitted to voters, the member counties will have to pay half of the cost of any local state road projects. If they arrive at a list but voters reject the cost, the local match will slip to 30 percent. If voters approve the tax, the local governments will have to match just 10 percent of the cost.

“They call these incentives. They’re penalties, really,” Bicknell observed. Local governments currently do not participate in the cost of state road projects

As for the Northeast Georgia Transportation Roundtable, “There’s no way we won’t pass a project list,” Bicknell added.

The referendum had been set for Aug. 21, 2012, but Bicknell said there is pending legislation that would move the vote to the July primary elections.

Bicknell said there will be “serious implications” for local economic development efforts if the local vote fails, but he also appeared to recognize the lack of enthusiasm of voters for a new sales tax.

“As we go along, citizens will become more aware of the dire need,” he predicted. He called the tax “part of the state’s strategy to change the tax model, moving away from income taxes to other means.

“While this is a new tax, it’s really a new method of taxing,” Bicknell said. He added that he hopes the chamber supports passage of the referendum, just as it supported the recent SPLOST and E-LOST votes.