Published: February 10, 2010 07:25 pm      

Lawmakers say voters could decide regional SPLOSTs

Local lawmakers say the General Assembly could approve plans for regional Special Purpose Local Option Sales Taxes (SPLOSTs) this year.

This would allow voters in several counties to vote on temporary 1 percent sales taxes to fund transportation projects that would affect an entire region.

Lawmakers have discussed this idea for the past three years, but it has failed to get enough votes in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass.

But local lawmakers say things are shaping up better this year. Gov. Sonny Perdue has endorsed a version of the idea, and Democrats in the Legislature have included a version of the idea in their transportation plan.

“It has a little more traction than it may have had in the past,” said Rep. Tom Dickson, R-Cohutta.

Sen. Don Thomas, R-Dalton, said one of the advantages of a regional SPLOST is that voters in the affected area would decide whether to put it in place.

“It would be spent in the region where they vote it in. I think that’s fair,” he said. “It makes sense for the Metro Atlanta area to put on a 1 cent sales tax because that’s where the congestion is.”

Rep. Roger Williams, R-Dalton, said he, too, thinks the regional SPLOST plan has a good chance of passing this year.

“It’s a good idea as long as we have someone make sure they fit into the overall state transportation plan and we aren’t building special roads for special people,” he said.

But lawmakers say another idea proposed by the Democrats may face a tougher go. Currently, three of every four cents collected in sales taxes on motor fuels goes to transportation. The Democrats have proposed that all sales taxes collected on fuel should go to transportation. The tax generated $137 million in revenue in 2009.

“That’s an idea that members of both parties have talked about for some time,” Dickson said. “The primary problem is obvious. If you take away that much revenue from the general budget, how are you going to make it up?”

Thomas said taking that money away from the general budget would hurt the state’s ability to fund education and health care.

“(State) revenues are going down. They were down 8.7 percent in January over last year, and they are down 12.9 percent overall in the fiscal year,” Thomas said. “That’s going to create a hole of about $2 billion.”

But Williams said he’s open to the idea of dedicating 100 percent of the sales tax on fuel to transportation.

“There’s no question that (the Department of Transportation) is going to have to have more funds to do the work that needs to be done,” he said. “It’s either that or us having to dip into general funds. That would affect the general budget, too.”

He said no one wants to raise new taxes.

“This is money that’s already there,” he said.