On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see the new gym at Roper Park’s back entrance starting to take shape. Prices as quoted by the county seem reasonable for a facility the county needs. True, the schools are well-stocked with gyms one might think the county could also use, but that argument would be beating a dead horse.
Prices paid for the gym aren’t going to break our county’s SPLOST budget, which lists $3 million dedicated for recreation. Land bought for the gym cost $311,000. The facility is expected to cost around $1.5 million.
We’ve cheered long and hard in support of recreation here. We recognize this community’s parks are the smallest, most under-equipped and generally the worst in North Georgia.
On the other hand, at this time of economic uncertainty, we’re an even bigger fan of fiscal restraint. Here’s where this gym throws up some red flags.
Under the SPLOST plan, which will presumably fund this gym, recreation is a Tier II item. In theory, and as presented to voters, all Tier I items must be completed (as in finished) before a county can move on to Tier II items. We’ve asked who it is that declares a project officially completed and have never received a good answer.
For the current SPLOST (on the ballot as a $34 million sales tax revenue generator in early 2008), there were two items considered Tier I: debt on the jail and Admin Building, totaling roughly $5.7 million; a new/renovated courthouse, its budget listed at $17 million dollars with another line item of $2.7 million for financing.
Commissioner Rob Jones has since said the courthouse won’t be nearly that expensive; publicly he has speculated it might cost only 10 to 12 million dollars. Maybe that’s right.
Frankly, it’s hard to see how anyone can gauge whether $10 million or $17 million is a more accurate cost estimate, given unknowns of whether Main Street’s marble courthouse can accommodate expansion or whether parking and size constraints will force the county to look for a new spot.
The idea of assigning priorities to items up for SPLOST vote is to force county officials and voters to eat their meat and taters (debt, courthouses, jails) before moving on to dessert (gyms and libraries).
Going ahead to start a Tier II project before even breaking ground on a major Tier I project like the courthouse (allocated half of projected SPLOST revenue collections) seems risky: a circumvention of promises made to voters and a stretching of state statutes.
Were the commissioner to simply say instead that he will build our gym using regular (non-SPLOST) funds, that would sound equally bad, when you figure part of future SPLOST collections are already earmarked for recreation. Surely some SPLOST revenue will remain for a gym after the courthouse.
But a problem exists: costs on projects such as courthouses and gyms have remained mostly constant while revenue collected through sales tax has plummeted the past three years.
The county originally projected taking in $34 million during six years of one-penny sales tax collections.
In 2009, the county collected $3,346,669 in SPLOST revenue and expects to collect $3,714,000 this year. The Wal-Mart store to open this summer may bump up collections, but with the real estate collapse/recession, it would seem prudent to significantly lower expectations concerning SPLOST collections.
The county is not offering any official revised collection projections. The county financial director said that involves too much speculation on what the economy will do. If you “straightline” current collections, figuring no growth or decline, $22 million is a better estimate of where collections will be.
Adjust the budget to just $22 million in revenue intake, take out $5.7 million for debt, another $1.8 million for the gym, and you are left with $14.5 million for a courthouse––cutting it a little too close for comfort, we believe.
Let’s not dive into dessert (a gym) before we finish our dinner (a courthouse), otherwise county taxpayers could wake up with a churning stomach because of it.
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