2267
5Either Peachtree City is completely incompetent when it comes to budgeting or social media is rife with misinformation. Which is it?
The Citizen sat down with City Manager Justin Strickland to get a walk through of the 2017 SPLOST budget that has become a hot button topic in various Facebook groups since the Peachtree City City Council Board Retreat over a week ago.
If you were to take a look at the 2017 SPLOST, at first glance it looks like glaring disparities between what some projects were originally budgeted, like $88,000 for paving a path between Publix and Carriage Lane along Hwy 54, and the $1.5 million that staff estimates now.
Let’s start with the background. First, the budget that we talked to Strickland about is specifically the 2017 SPLOST budget. According to Strickland there were originally 39 projects listed to be tackled using that pot of money. Those funds can only be used for projects that have been approved specifically via a voter referendum, not day-to-day operations. Over the course of six years the SPLOST was collected, from 2017 to 2023, $58M was collected to go towards these 39 projects. Much of that money has been spent to date, as 31 of the projects are completed. Because the SPLOST is collected over the course of six years and there are dozens of projects, the City must prioritize projects over time.
As a primer if you’re new to the budgets of cities and counties, SPLOST stands for Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. SPLOST must be approved by voters. It adds a penny of sales tax onto every dollar that’s spent in the county. This sales tax is used to fund special capital projects. It cannot be used for operating expenses. It is separate from the City’s annual operating budget. SPLOST is a way that local governments can fund big expensive projects that are important to local citizens.
Eight projects remain to be completed from the 2017 SPLOST. You can follow along with the 2017 SPLOST Status PDF that we’ve included along with this article. You’ll see the ridiculous $88,000 in the budget for the path connection between Publix and Carriage Lane. I asked Strickland, “What gives?” But I also recognized that he wasn’t working for the city back when that estimate was made. The staff, the City Manager, the Mayor, and Councilmembers are different now. Estimates in the original budget were also all pre-COVID.
For that particular line item, Strickland mentioned a couple of factors that make the estimated actual cost SO much higher. When it was originally put in the budget, that path project included only material cost. Budget estimates at that time did not factor in GDOT right-of-way requirements, relocating utilities, or consider a way to construct a path adjacent to a cemetery while respecting a buffered area. So certainly the original estimate could have been more comprehensive. It wasn’t and there’s no one left responsible to blame, if blaming served the community in any way, anyhow.
Strickland said, “I can’t say why some projects were budgeted the way they were because I wasn’t here. Nine years have gone by since these estimates were done in 2016 and the cost of materials alone has skyrocketed since then. In today’s dollars, what we are looking at for the actual cost of this project is $1.2 million. So yes, it is over the original 2017 estimate.” Keeping this in mind, staff thinks it will take $1.2 million but put $1.5 in the estimate to be conservative.
In light of the 2017 SPLOST projects that are remaining, staff’s cost estimate of what it will take to do them is $10,355,705. The 2017 SPLOST cash on hand is $11,849,281. This will leave a balance of approximately $1.5 million dollars. That leftover money can be spent on SPLOST approved paving projects, which is always needed in a place like Peachtree City with over 200 miles of streets and 100 miles of paths.
According to Strickland, only one of those eight projects may not be completed in the near term, and that’s only because CSX railroad has yet to give permission to build a path crossing on Paschall Road. But if they get permission, the funds are there for that project, too.
The longer that the 2017 SPLOST funds sit unspent, the more interest they accrue in the local government investment pool (LGIP) through the Georgia Municipal Association. Last year that money accrued over a million dollars in interest. The goal is to complete the projects, not to keep it an account and earn interest. That is why 31 out of 39 projects are completed.
In regard to some of the other remaining projects, paving a path along Huddleston is waiting for some infrastructure that may be built down the road that would require a newly paved path to be destroyed again shortly. The pedestrian bridge project connecting Drake Field to All Children’s Playground is in the engineering phase.
“We’re in good shape as far as the cash on hand in the 2017 SPLOST account. I reviewed this with the City Council at the February retreat. I am confident that we can finish these projects with the funds available in the 2017 SPLOST account.”
Other posts have complained about the process for choosing projects, and some of those complaints are about the next pot of money that is the 2023 SPLOST. Strickland laid out the 2022 selection process for projects which involved open meetings, citizen committees, detailed recommendations to city council, staff recommendations, and recommendations from the Fire Chief and the Police Chief. Over 1,200 people submitted surveys and they were all reviewed, too. The people had their say. A citizen committee ranked all the projects that were suggested. According to Strickland, the City Council only made one change in the list of recommendations they got to the project list, and that list was put up for a vote. So when people complain about why we are funding a specific project, just know that there was a very open process for choosing those projects.
The 2023 SPLOST is forecasted to net $67 million dollars, and out of that the City has budgeted $60 million to do its 38 projects, leaving a $7 million dollar contingency for overages on projects—in case there is another mis-budgeted item, and because some of the projects will not be completed until near the end of a six year cycle and costs can rise, for example the cost of materials could go up. Peachtree City citizens made their voices heard that they want the projects done. Voters passed this newest SPLOST with 75% support.
What about the City’s annual operating budget? He said, “the City has come in under budget every year that I’ve been here. We have a very healthy fund balance. I believe we should have discussions on where that range should be as I stated in our retreat. We have a AAA bond rating with both bond agencies, which is the highest bond possible rating for local governments. This means we enjoy the most favorable interest rates.”
What good is a healthy fund balance? A healthy fund balance enabled Peachtree City’s neighbor to the West, Newnan, to recover from a devastating tornado in 2021 without having to take out loans. And a healthy fund balance enabled Peachtree City to be able to purchase the On Target Gun Club facility and get a fully built gun range, plus room for training and offices for the Peachtree City Police Department at $4 million dollars cash, a fraction of the estimated $12 million it would have taken to build a similar facility from scratch. A healthy fund balance also allowed Peachtree City to maintain steady operations in the fall of 2024 when tax collections were delayed for months by the County.
So are SPLOST errors still being made with the 2023 iteration? It might seem like it, if we were to compare the $770,000 that was budgeted for Pickleball with the actual price tag for the project. Part of that is because the recreation master plan recommended moving the proposed courts to a different area of the city by Meade Field, not at the originally proposed location at the tennis center. The recreation master plan also recommends 24 courts instead of the originally proposed 12. Council asked Strickland to bring cost information for 18 courts with room to build an additional six courts at some point in the future.
With changes in the SPLOST budget, with keeping operating expenses under budget, “Peachtree City has gotten awards for excellence in financial reporting for 30 straight years, and we just got it again,” said Strickland. “We, as city employees, take budgeting and our stewardship of public funds very seriously.”
[pdfjs-viewer url=”https://thecitizen.com/wpimport/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2017-SPLOST-Status.pdf” attachment_id=”120285″ viewer_width=100% viewer_height=800px fullscreen=true download=true print=true]
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.