Most SPLOST projects are on schedule
Chulio Hills residents are concerned about their road project.
The importance of bringing 2013 SPLOST projects in on, or under, budget and completing the full list of projects was made clear to Rome, Cave Spring and Floyd County leaders during a meeting at the new animal control facility last week.
City Manager Sammy Rich and Floyd County Manager Jamie McCord each indicated they were well aware of the need to get the entire package done in order to instill confidence in voters. In their minds, building confidence in SPLOST projects gives faith to those who may be looking for a reason to vote against a new package in the future.
The special purpose, local option sales tax collections started in April 2014 and are slated to run through March 2019. It was proposed to raise $64,978,000. Through November, the tax had raised $34.1 million and was running about $624,000 ahead of budget.
SPLOST Citizens Advisory Committee member Alvin Jackson Sr. expressed concerns on behalf of residents of the Chulio Hills community that work on Honeysuckle Ridge Road has not gotten a higher priority.
Rich explained that the engineering for the split-level road through that community has created a complex design issue for engineers and was “more complex than I had anticipated.” He assured Jackson that a request for proposals for engineering assistance would go out by mid-January.
Rich said the Rome Tennis Center at Berry College has already booked 34 tournaments for 2017 and is on pace to meet third-year-budget projections within the first 18 months of operations.
Rich said the city had finally gotten some appraisal figures from the Norfolk Southern Railroad related to the extension of a trail through Summerville Park to Redmond Circle.
“Now we need to have some serious negotiations and try to get an actual price for the (abandoned rail) trail route,” he said.
Rich said that more than $950,000 of the $1 million budget for system-wide sewer improvements had already been spent and final projects are being closed out.
The city manager predicted that playground improvements at various parks, budgeted at $500,000, would be completed in time for children to be using the new equipment by next summer.
Work to stabilize Unity Point at the confluence of the rivers downtown would be the final project on the city’s segment of the list of projects, he added.
Assistant County Manager Gary Burkhalter explained
that infrastructure improvements in Lindale are still being reviewed as a result of the failure to win a Community Development Block Grant from the Department of Community Affairs in 2016. $1.4 million has been budgeted for the work.
Most of the $1.7 million earmarked for energy efficiency improvements to county buildings has been expended and is already starting to show results. McCord said new chillers for the HVAC system at the Rome-Floyd County Library have already resulted in more than $24,000 in savings on energy bills in 2016 as opposed to the previous
year. New chiller systems have also been completed at the Floyd County Health Department and the joint law enforcement center on Fifth Avenue. In addition, new cooling towers that will be used by both The Forum and Judicial Center have just been installed.
Burkhalter said that more than $1.7 million has been spent on new lighting, locks and control systems at the Floyd County Jail. The construction of a new elevator should be completed by spring 2017. The budget for work at the jail was set at $1.9 million.
McCord said a separate $2.2 million project to convert space in the jail for a new medical/mental health unit has been on hold pending sewage work in the area where that construction will take place. McCord said that engineering work on the 1,000-foot extension of the runway at Richard B. Russell Regional Airport would continue well into 2017 before a contract can be issued for the construction.
The $5.7 million project should be completed sometime in 2018.
David Newby, chairman of the advisory committee, said the panel would convene to get another update in May.