Penny tax has been in place since 1998
Beverley Levine
The Oglethorpe County Board of Education has approved a resolution to put the Education Special Local Option Sales (ESPOLST) on the ballot this November.
ESPLOST, which was approved in 2022 for five years, is not up for renewal until May of 2027, however it will be on the ballot this year because if it were to fail, the board would have to wait until November 2027 to put it back on the ballot.
If an ESPLOST vote fails, the board must wait a year before it can go back on the ballot and there is no election in May 2027.
“If it should happen, I don’t anticipate it failing, but if it should happen to fail, we would at least have another opportunity before the SPLOST will run out,” Superintendent Beverley Levine said recently. “It is extremely important to us that our SPLOST does not run out.”
ESPLOST is a 1% sales tax added to purchases in the county that helps the school district with debt repayment and to pay for special projects. ESPLOST has been in place in Oglethorpe County since it was approved by voters on Nov. 4, 1997, with the collection of the tax starting on April 1, 1998.
Debt and bond repayment are key to how Oglethorpe County uses ESPLOST, and those payments must continue to be made, Levine said. If the ESPLOST vote fails, the school system must try again in order to ensure debt payments continue.
ESPLOST funding is also important for saving for new projects, such as building schools or facility repairs.
While there are no plans to build a new school, Levine said it can take as many as 15 years of ESPLOST savings to build one, so the school system and board of education must plan in advance and have ESPLOST savings on hand for building repairs and other unexpected costs.
“So there’s certain things that you can use it for, like maintenance-type things,” Levine said about how the school system can use ESPLOST funds. “We can use it for construction. We cannot use it for salaries or benefits, cannot use it for classroom supplies, but you can use it for transportation.”
The school system will be able to use ESPLOST money for items such as school buses and to support athletic, vocational and agricultural facilities. The money could also be used for food service equipment, safety and technology items.
The ESPLOST referendum will be on the ballot alongside the Board of Commissioners’ floating local option sales tax (FLOST), a 1% sales tax, which the BOC created after opting-in to HB 581, requiring more tax dollars to be collected from sales rather than property taxes.
The current sales tax rate in Oglethorpe County is 8% and is made up of the 4% state sales tax, a 1% local option sales tax (LOST), a 1% special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST), a 1% transportation special purpose local option sales tax (TSPLOST) and 1% for ESPLOST. Approval of FLOST will raise the county rate to 9%.