Much of Monday's Tifton City Council meeting concerned the upcoming renewal of the one-cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or SPLOST. City Manager Emily Beeman said the city would receive $600,000 more than during the past SPLOST.
Beeman noted that the county plans a courthouse expansion, which is estimated at more than $30 million, but county officials are not considering it as a "Level 1 project," which would have allowed the county to make it a first priority in any SPLOST distributions.
"If that's not teamwork, I don't know what is," Beeman told council. "We are building that bridge back with the county."
The state defines a "Level 1 Project” as a county project to carry out functions on behalf of the state, such as a county courthouse.
While he said that he is "glad we got extra money," Vice Mayor Jack Folk said "I still maintain we're getting the short end of the stick. It's a travesty that where 85% of the revenue is generated, we get less than 30%. Something's wrong with that picture."
Under the proposed SPLOST renewal on the ballot in November, the City of Tifton would receive 27.86% of the funds, the county would get 57.86%, and the cities of Omega and Ty Ty and the various authorities would receive the rest. The county anticipates a total of $70 million to be generated during the six-year SPLOST period.
Perhaps one day, Folk said, "we can hope that the city gets its fair share and is not being taken advantage of."
Beeman said that she and County Administrator Jim Carter are "going on a road show" to explain SPLOST to voters. "SPLOST is going to be a hot topic between now and the end of October going into the election," Beeman told council.
Earlier in the meeting, Julie Lester, a Tifton resident, told council she "felt betrayed" and disappointed by Mayor Julie B. Smith's comments at a recent meeting of the state Senate Study Committee on the Local Option Sales Tax, or "LOST."
Lester noted Smith told the committee that during last year's contentious negotiations between the city and county on LOST, "We didn't negotiate for what we ended up getting. We settled; we caved; I couldn't take it anymore."
Lester told council, "I was very disappointed. Acquiescing to demands of others just because you can't take it anymore isn't good leadership."
Smith told the Tifton Grapevine on Tuesday that Lester "took my comments completely out of context." The mayor noted that she had told the Senate panel that she was getting calls from state officials, economic developers, and business people to find a way to end the public bickering with the county, that it was affecting future business development.
"It wasn't my choice alone to end this; it was council's choice," the mayor told the Grapevine. "Afterward, we made a commitment to do everything we could do to work together" and to not go through the "media circus" again that LOST negotiations became.
"It was hard," Smith said. "I've been very open and very accessible about this."
To see Smith's testimony to the Senate study committee, click video below. She appears at one hour and 24 minutes into the video.
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