A Comparison of the Morgan County SPLOST Resolution, and the Morgan County Board of Education ELOST Resolution
According to the Constitution of the State of Georgia, an ELOST (Educational Local Option Sales Tax) is just a SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) dedicated to two educational purposes: debt reduction and capital spending. Both follow very similar laws. One law both must follow is that in asking the taxpayers to impose an additional 1% sales tax on themselves, the governmental bodies must list the projects the tax will fund, and list an estimated cost for each project. The estimated cost thus becomes a price cap.
Here are the two most recent local option sales tax resolutions passed by the voters of Morgan County, Georgia. The SPLOST resolution, written by the commissioners of Morgan County, is specific: $10.5 million for a public safety building/detention center, $900,000 for library improvements, etc. The ELOST is vague, unconstitutionally vague, in my opinion. It says that we will build buildings, or not, or buy buses, or not, or invest in technology, or not, and oh, by the way, the total price is $29.575 million. There are no individual price tags on individual projects. This is how the $3.5 million new gymnasium became a $5.25 million new gymnasium.
(An interesting note: the county SPLOST will run 6 years, the ELOST 5 years, and both will impose a 1% tax on the same purchases, county wide, yet the school system estimates it will receive more than $29.5 million in 5 years, while the county looks for $26 million in 6 years.)
The two resolutions are given in their entirety. In the event that you miss the list of projects from the ELOST (which is easy to do) I have copied it from the bottom of the second page of the resolution, and added it to the end.