At the August meeting of the courthouse advisory committee, an exchange not nearly as succinct as the following got to the crux of the bottleneck that has developed with the county’s massive courthouse renovation project. Committee members expressed the need for financial projections and a budget to move forward with planned courthouse reworking while County Financial Director Mechelle Champion asked the committee to give her some plans and a budget, so she can start looking at financing options.
Which comes first, the budget or the plans? More importantly, who is going to develop an educated guess of how much revenue the county will collect in the remaining five years of the one-cent sales tax, and how much of that will be used on the courthouse portion of SPLOST plans?
The problem is that under the original SPLOST referendum the county projected $34 million in sales tax collections over six years. Of that $34 million, $17 million was earmarked for the courthouse project. There is some disagreement now as to whether reworking the marble courthouse at the center of downtown was actually meant to use up the full $17 million, but this was the amount presented to voters on SPLOST information preceding the vote.
The total is now a moot point, as the economy has tanked, and the chance of receiving sales tax revenue anywhere near $34 million is slim.
At the August courthouse meeting, information presented showed the county collected $3,442,166 in SPLOST sales tax between July 1, 2008 and July 31, 2009. Committee members were hesitant to make any projections about what the next five years will produce, and rightfully so.
As noted by courthouse project consultant, Tom Eubanks, all us property tax payers are ultimately responsible to pay back any money borrowed against future sales tax collections if those sales tax collections fall short. In other words, we could budget $15 million on a courthouse, use bonds to start the project ahead of sales tax collections, and then wind up receiving only $10 million in sales tax collected. In that scenario, Pickens County would be left to come up with the remaining $5 million.
This is not necessarily a disaster, as the current jail, which was started under the previous administration, left us with an outstanding debt that was rolled over to be paid off under the current SPLOST. If we move forward with courthouse plans, then come up short on revenue, we could in, the words of one advisory member, “send it down the pike again.”
Getting the big project moving would put dollars in the local economy and move ahead with something all parties agree is needed. But we would be gambling the county could hold courthouse costs within an acceptable range and that voters would again approve a Special Purpose sales tax.
If things go totally haywire, we might see a property tax hike to pay off our outsized desires for the old marble building on Main.
In light of continuing economic uncertainty, we’d like to suggest a Plan B.
The state has imposed a tier system on special purpose sales tax use. The courthouse work (along with remaining debt on the Admin Building and the county jail) must be completed before sales tax revenue can be spent on any other project. Admin Building debt is $2.7 million, and we still owe $3.2 million on the jail that can be paid with sales taxes being collected now.
That would bring the total of tier one projects here (excluding the courthouse) to $6 million, an amount surely to be collected by the end of year two in the SPLOST timeframe. We suggest a hold on the courthouse project while we pay off these other building debts and reassess what we actually need with the courthouse. Further we’d suggest all involved be informed the project is at a standstill. Don’t expect anything for another year.
After another year, the county will have made collections for two of the six years and by that point, someone can step up and give some projections.
Essentially with the SPLOST, let’s pay off our debts and then go back to square one for the courthouse. |
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