Cobb SPLOST victorious
Cobb taxpayers’ pennies will head to the municipal governments for another six years, starting in 2016.
In unofficial results Tuesday, voters approved Cobb County’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) that will raise more than $750 million for a range of building projects, from road improvements to relieve congestion to new libraries.
The vote was neck-in-neck throughout the night, with the tax widening its margin slightly with each new batch of precinct results tallied.
The tax renewal will be used for a variety of projects, including providing the county’s six cities with a combined $185 million; buying public safety equipment; building a county police headquarters, fire station and libraries; improving parks; and buying emergency response radios and building three towers.
A tight race over SPLOST is nothing new in Cobb, where voters approved tax renewals in 2011 and 2005 by just 100 votes each. Overall, the6 tax has been rejected by Cobb voters four of nine times since 1981 — and that doesn’t include a resounding defeat of the 2012 regional transportation sales tax.
The one-percent sales tax would keep Cobb’s rate at percent — 4 percent for the state; 1 percent for schools; and 1 percent for municipal governments.
About the Author
Dan Klepal is editor of the local government team, supervising nine reporters covering county and municipal governments and metro Atlanta. Klepal came to the AJC in 2012, after a long career covering city halls in Cincinnati and Louisville, Ky. He has covered Gwinnett and Cobb counties before spending three years on the investigative team.
