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Early voting has begun on a Special Election to decide whether or not allow a one cent sales tax to be collected for education. This Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales and Use Tax (E-SPLOST) is already being collected on purchases here in the county but is slated to end in June of 2012. The current E-SPLOST was used to build the new Middle School. The High School was also built using E-SPLOST funds. One important thing to note, the E-SPLOST is not the same thing as the SPLOST that is being used to renovate the Courthouse but it is currently ongoing so there would not be a change in the amount of sales collected if this E-SPLOST is approved.
E-SPLOST funds can only be used for capital expenditures such as those listed below and cannot be used for salaries and other operating expenses, but it does allow current allocated funds to be used for other purposes without depending on property tax revenue. A one cent sales tax is collected on every item sold in Pike County and that E-SPLOST money is used for specific purposes stated on the ballot.
Pike County voters will decide whether to continue the current one cent sales and use tax for up to five years for a total of $6 million for the purposes of "(I) acquiring, constructing, and equipping new schools and facilities, (II) adding to, renovating, repairing, improving and equipping existing school buildings and school system facilities, (III) acquiring miscellaneous new equipment, fixtures, and furnishings for the school system, including instructional and administrative computer technology equipment, computer software and safety and security equipment, (IV) expanding and improving existing athletic facilities, (v) acquiring textbooks, e-books and e-book readers for the school system, with the maximum cost of the projects described in Items (I) - (v) payable from said tax being $6,000,000, and for the purpose of (VI) paying any general obligation debt of the School District issued in conjunction with the imposition of such sales and use tax, and (VII) paying expenses incident to accomplishing the forgoing." A "yes" vote will also give approval to the school system to the issuance of a general obligation bond of no more than $4.6 million with the annual interest being paid through E-SPLOST money each year. Pike County Times asked Superintendent of the Pike County School System, Dr. Michael S. Duncan about the possibility of purchasing a large bond for these upgrades with a new SPLOST. He advised that a large bond is not in the picture at this time.
“We’re going to put that as far off into the future as we can and pool up as much of that SPLOST revenue as we can prior to doing any kind of bond work because we want to make sure that there are no significant fluctuations in the sales tax like we experienced this last time in order to avoid any property tax implications,” said Dr. Duncan. He said that the Board of Education is looking to put renovation modification needs as far into the future as possible prior to starting that project so in order to avoid having to raise taxes to cover bond payments if the current economic downturn continues.
There are specific needs that the Pike County Board of Education is going to use this E-SPLOST to cover. First and foremost, this E-SPLOST would be used to cover technology needs in the school system. Dr. Duncan advised that there has been discussion about taking out a small bond of around $750,000 to begin making immediate changes in technology for the school system.
The school system currently uses Windows XP has been advised by Microsoft that the security patches necessary to keep the system secure will no longer be provided after June of 2012. Dr. Duncan advised that the computer network would be vulnerability to breeches in security without these security patches. “That is something that is not acceptable when we are dealing with sensitive information that we have to deal with—especially student records,” Dr. Duncan said.
This E-SPLOST would also be used to upgrade the operating system of the entire District to Windows 7 or whatever is the most current operating system available at the time of the upgrade. District-wide software would be upgraded from Microsoft Office Windows 2003 to the newest version available at the same time. According to the E-SPLOST Frequently Asked Questions Sheet (see link below), this will also allow the School District to open and share documents outside of the school system when needed.
Secondly, it would allow the expansion, renovation, and modification of Pike County Primary, Elementary and High Schools. According the E-SPLOST Frequently Asked Questions Sheet, the priority of addition and renovation—including the addition of a new Career, Technical, and Education win--of the High School is based on student enrollment. Another priority is the construction of a new K-5 Elementary School.
E-SPLOST could help provide up to an additional $5 million up funds needed for these projects because the school District can apply for state funds to help with new construction, renovation or facility modification. According to the Frequently Asked Questions Sheet, the District expects to receive these funds if it puts in an application for them.
A "no" vote will mean that the current E-SPLOST will end and the school system will have to make new purchases for students, make needed upgrades to technology, make repairs and renovations to current school system buildings and facilities, and make improvements to athletic facilities would have to come from somewhere else because state and federal funds for school systems across the state have been reduced in recent years. To view a presentation of how cuts from the state level have affected schools state-wide, click here.
Click here to read a list of E-SPLOST frequently asked questions and read the answers. This was provided to the Board of Education at a previous meeting and is very informative.
Click here to read a copy of the voting ballot.
Early voting began on October 17, 2011 on the Special Local Option Sales and Use Tax for the Pike County School District. Anyone who was registered to vote by October 11, 2011 is eligible to vote in this election. Picture identification is required in the form of any valid state or federal government issued photo ID; including a free Voter ID Card issued by your county registrar's office or the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS); a Georgia Driver's License--even if expired; valid employee photo ID from any branch, department, agency, or entity of the U.S. Government, Georgia, or any county, municipality, board, authority or other entity of this state; valid U.S. passport ID; valid U.S. military photo ID; and, valid tribal photo ID. Early voting will continue through November with the final day of early voting being on November 4, 2011. The voting machines are set up in the Courthouse right now and this is the only item on the ballot so it should be a short trip to the Courthouse or to the ballot box on Election Day.
Election Day and the final day to vote is November 8, 2011. The results of the vote will be read to the public in the Courthouse on the night of November 8, 2011.
Please become educated on this E-SPLOST and get out and vote. If you choose not to vote, you should choose not to complain when the vote doesn’t go your way.