No trouble for SPLOST budget
Collections are more than $600,000 in the black thanks to initial underestimation of the fiveyear tax package budget.
While Rome and Floyd County government executives have been wringing their hands about sales tax shortfalls throughout 2016, members of the 2013 SPLOST committee were smiling Thursday night as they learned collections are ahead of budget.
SPLOST Citizens Advisory Committee members met at the site of the new animal control facility at 99 North Ave., and were told that, since April 2014, collections are more than $600,000 in the black.
Floyd County Manager Jamie McCord explained that the committee, working with government officials three years ago, intentionally low-balled the budget for the five-year tax package.
“We took the average of the lowest 12
months of collections over the previous five years, then reduced that by 7½ percent,” McCord said. “Thank God we did.”
That conservative budget resulted in the need to collect at least $1,082,970 in special purpose, local option sales taxes each month from spring 2014 through spring 2019. A budget sheet distributed to committee members Thursday showed the county failed to meet that budget in just five of the past 31 months.
During one of those months, July 2015, the community got nothing because of the sales tax refund that had to be met for a company that overpaid taxes in previous years. That month alone cost the budget the entire $1,082,970. Yet, the up-to-date collections are still $624,032 ahead of budget.
Assistant Floyd County Manager Gary Burkhalter said contractors are working on punchlist items to complete both the animal control shelter and the special operations building, which is right behind the shelter on North Avenue. He expects certificates of occupancy for both buildings to be issued by the middle of next week.
An open house and ribbon cutting at the animal control facility is slated for Dec. 21 at 4 p.m.
Burkhalter said the state approved engineering plans for extending water service to the
Everett Springs community. The county is working on a Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority loan to start the project in 2017.
City Manager Sammy Rich told the panel that work on the upgrades to the City Hall/ City Auditorium would be completed by the end of the month, but the project has gone over budget by $114,491.
Some of that overage may be compensated for by an under-budget bid for sidewalk and gutter improvements to Burnett Ferry Road. Bartow Paving’s low bid for that work, which could begin within the next 30 days, came in at almost $600,000 under budget.