Aragon SPLOST to pay back its general fund

The Aragon City Council has decided money set aside from the 2014 Special Purpose, Local Option Sales Tax fund will be used to pay back their general fund balance in the coming months, used for SPLOST- based purchases.

The move came after the city approved spending on a new patrol vehicle for the Aragon Police Department as part of their scheduled SPLOST purchases to keep new police cars rotated into the city’s fleet, and old cars out.

Over the summer, the city spent $37,100 out of the general fund to pay for the new car along with a license plate reader system to be installed on the car as well.

Since the money wasn’t immediately available from the SPLOST’s public safety category to pay off the car and tag reader system in one payment, the city elected instead to use the general fund.

Council members voted unanimously to a plan during their Aug. 17 session to pay back the general fund for the car and tag reader system. They allowed for up to 50 percent of the check the city gets each month from SPLOST collections to fund the repayment of the general fund balance’s loan.

City Clerk Christie Langston said the first payment on the $37,100 will begin when the September check arrives, and will continue for some months to come.

“We’re estimating six months, but it’s currently undetermined since we don’t know how much the SPLOST check is,” Langston said.

The council however decided that with the repayments coming in for SPLOST, it wasn’t time immediately to undertake any further projects or changes.

They decided to table a decision on renovations to the pool house until more solid figures on how much it will cost to complete the work being proposed by new full time maintenance hire Josh Ozment, who continues on as the city’s building inspector and code enforcement officer.

A decision to table a new storage shed for the city’s public works equipment and dump truck was also approved by the council.

They decided too that a proposal put forth by Mayor Garry Baldwin to increase spending limits on SPLOSTbased purchases for the pool house renovation t o $ 1,750 wasn’t a good idea at the time.

Baldwin requested the change to be able to make small purchases using SPLOST funds for the pool house renovations without having to go to the city council each time for approval for use of the money.