Wonk alert: Click here for the county-by-county impact of House transportation bill
Updated: In the last few minutes, the Georgia Municipal Association has sent over an updated chart of the impact of the House-proposed Transportation Funding Act on county and city governments and local school boards. It includes the amounts those local governments would be allowed to raise through the proposed excise tax -- more accurately demonstrating the gap. Click here for your copy.
Original: County, city and school system officials say a House bill to raise $1 billion in transportation funding would ultimately hit local governments hard. From the AJC's Aaron Gould Sheinin:
The House plan would allow existing local special option sales taxes, or SPLOSTs, to continue until they expire. After that, however, local governments would be allowed to levy an additional 3 cents per gallon excise tax, but all of that revenue would have to go to transportation.
Motor fuel would be exempt from any future SPLOST, which would limit the tax's revenue base, which in fiscal 2014 equaled $172 million for school boards and $516 million for all local governments.
With this message from the school board association came a county-by-county chart of threatened revenue compiled by the Georgia Municipal Association. The wonks who walk among us can download their copy by clicking here.
About the Author
Jim Galloway, the newspaper’s former political columnist, was a writer and editor at the AJC for four decades.
