Jackson County voters should impose a new 10-year one-percent sales tax on themselves July 31 to help their (and Georgia’s) economic outlook, a guest speaker told members of the Jackson County Area Chamber of Commerce last Wednesday.
Douglas Callaway is the executive director of the Georgia Transportation Alliance, a group formed for the sole purpose of getting what is known as T-SPLOST approved by the voters.
“The vote on July 31 isn’t really about transportation,” Callaway told his audience. “It’s about jobs, it’s about safety and it’s about local control. That’s a winning trio.”
The General Assembly approved the Georgia Transportation Investment Act last year. It divided the state into 12 regions along the boundary lines of the regional development commissions. Each of those districts created a list of proposed projects to be funded should the tax pass. Jackson County is part of a 12-county region expected to generate just shy of $1 billion over 10 years.
Callaway expressed the view that the referendum gives voters local control over how the money raised in their district is spent
“It empowers local people to decide for themselves what they want to do. That’s a good idea,” he said.
He pointed out that Georgia “invests” less per capita in transportation than any state but Tennessee, and has the lowest motor fuels tax in the country.
Still, he insisted, the tax “is not about asphalt, concrete and steel — it’s about jobs for people and the jobs people need.”
Georgia’s economic success, he told his audience, is tied to the port of Savannah, the Atlanta airport, the interstate highway system and the railroads. That transportation infrastructure once gave Georgia a tremendous economic advantage, “but lately, we’ve been coasting,” he said, quoting a Department of Transportation official.
Using a racing analogy, Callaway said, “If I take my foot off the gas, my competitors are going to pass me.”
Callaway told the group that the upcoming T-SPLOST referendum was cited as among the reasons that Caterpillar opted to locate in Northeast Georgia, and he said a Department of Transportation study demonstrated that every $1 billion spent on transportation generates 28,000 jobs — pointing out that the estimated 10-year take from the tax in this region will be right at $1 billion.
“Other states don’t have a T-SPLOST,” Callaway said. “We have a choice. We need to take advantage of that.”
Districts who fail to do so will be at a competitive disadvantage in attracting business and industry he added.
If voters across the district pass the referendum, funds will start flowing Jan. 1. Money can be used for construction, engineering, land acquisition, administration, maintenance and operations.
Seventy-five percent of the revenue will go toward projects already selected throughout the district, but 25 percent will be returned to individual governments — counties and cities — based on a formula that takes into consideration population and miles of roads. The lieutenant governor and speaker of the House will appoint five members to serve on a committee to be “watchdogs” over how the money is spent in each district.
Callaway stressed that the key to selling voters on the tax is to focus on its benefits.
Callaway also claimed that passage of T-SPLOST will make Georgia roads safer by allowing the widening of narrow rural roads and providing safety features like additional turn lanes for more congested urban and suburban streets that he said pose challenges for older drivers.
“It is a tax,” he said. “It is one I’m willing to pay to get the benefits that are promised to me. You’re glad to pay taxes when you know your money is going where you want it to.”
Callaway closed with a quote from Will Rogers: “‘Even if you’re on the right track, if you just sit there you’ll get run over,’” he said. “If we don’t have the money to keep moving forward, we’re going to get run over.”
