The third and current SPLOST for the county’s school system has funded construction of athletic and academic facilities and advanced technology inside classrooms.
And the Screven County Board of Education wants a fourth special local option sales tax.
The current SPLOST expires 11 months from now on June 30, 2012, but since the public’s last county-wide vote on SPLOST in 2007 the Georgia state law has changed concerning when such a special option sales tax can be put on the ballot.
Now SPLOSTs must be part of a traditional election. Three years ago the SPLOST issue was the only item on the ballot as just 372 out of the 7,820 registered voters went to the polls. The measure passed 317 votes to 52.
Screven County school officials have a target of March 15, 2011, for a SPLOST vote.
“Some smaller counties already are having a vote in the November before,” Myers said.
With the expectations that the more voters will head to the polls when extra issues and electable seats are on the ballot, Myers said the BOE will need to notify the public of proposed SPLOST.
“Obviously, you’ve got to do a lot more campaigning to get the word out with a much larger group of voters,” Myers said.
Items on SPLOSTs, officials say, can be ones that are necessary for the upkeep of equipment within the school system.
“People need to understand that if we don’t use SPLOST dollars for items, then we will have to go to the public and ask for more taxes,” said BOE chair Lindy Sheppard.
A part of getting information out to the public includes providing a list of expenditures that a new SPLOST would finance. On Tuesday morning, the school board took one of initial steps toward outlining their proposal to the voters.
Tuesday’s BOE work session allowed the board members the chance to see first-hand some sites on school campuses that could be aided by SPLOST dollars.
“We do have to have a starting point on a list,” said William Bland, assistant superintendent and director of maintenance and operations. “We would like to have a game plan.”
Bland called the work session an opportunity to “ride around to look at facilities and ‘kick the tires.’”
The board members rode on a bus to the elementary, middle and high schools to look at potential expenditures.
While the session was for “brainstorming,” items like the replacement of a 23-year-old heating and air conditioning unit at the elementary school is of need, officials said.
“We can only have a vote on SPLOST when other elections are going on,” Bland told board members. “We need to work to get some input from you. We want the SPLOST to continue.
“I am rather anxious to start the SPLOST renewal,” Bland said. “We need to get that ball rolling.”
Other items of discussion for the elementary school were playground equipment replacement, fencing around the playground, and re-asphalting the road leading to rear of school on Clark Street.
At the middle school, talk was about a concession building at baseball field, reroof of middle school, and paint main hallway.
At the high school, the discussion was about re-asphalting the student and bus parking lots, landscaping, and sound system improvements at Kelly Memorial Stadium and inside the gymnasium.
The auditorium also was listed for possible renovations.
Talk was about possibly moving the maintenance and operations campus to the old middle school on Pine Street where the Performance Learning Center was located.
Systemwide possibilities are textbooks, computers and school buses.
School officials say they welcome input from the community about potential expenditures that could be on the SPLOST list, a list that voters would have approve at the polls.
The SPLOST has afforded the BOE to purchase equipment, construct buildings and upgrade facilities that, based on cuts from a sluggish economy, would not have happened. The penny-on-the-dollar tax locally continues to generate strong despite revenue woes. At the April school board meeting, Myers said the SPLOST intake in March pulled in $154,000 – a significant amount for Screven County’s size.
“I think we are ahead of the curve where SPLOST is concerned,” Myers told the board. “Effingham County has taken a pretty big hit, but interestingly our SPLOST is holding steady compared to others.”
The last SPLOST, which was held in March 2007, brought out less than 400 total voters as the tax option was the only item on the ballot. An estimated $6,500 is necessary to operate on election day which involves the operating the equipment and paying for poll workers to be at each precinct for 12 hours.
When the tallies were done, each vote cost $17.47.