Houston County Asks for SPLOST Extension | News

Houston County leaders want voters say "yes" to extending a penny sales tax on a March 6, 2012 ballot.

Tuesday, Houston voters agreed to extend a one-percent sales tax for education.

Houston Commission Chairman Tommy Stalnaker said the priorities of this SPLOST will be for encroachment, economic development and public safety.

Houston commissioners called a special meeting Wednesday to announce their plans to ask voters to approve the SPLOST -- also a one percent sales tax.

A standing-room-only crowd of Houston County leaders packed into the commission chambers to listen to the announcement.

To the crowd, Stalnaker said, "The Houston County Commissioners together with the cities of Centerville, Perry and Warner Robins call for a SPLOST vote on March 6th 2012."

Stalnaker and the mayors of each city asked voters to extend a one-percent sales tax.

They stressed that the sales tax rate would stay the same, 7 percent.

Stalnaker said, "We have got to do something to shift the burden off taxpayers in order to utilize the sales tax, so we can contain sales taxes or possibly lower them."

Houston County kept property taxes the same, and Centerville lowered theirs this year. Warner Robins and Perry raised them.

The mayors of those cities, Chuck Shaheen and Jimmy Faircloth., said the SPLOST could prevent future hikes, and pay for projects that would otherwise put the cities in debt.

Faircloth said, "We couldn't raise property taxes enough. Were talking four to six mills increase in the City of Perry to do the minimum things were anticipating with the SPLOST."

The group said the SPLOST would generate $155 million with public safety, transportation and economic development projects taking up the largest pieces of the pie.

Stalnaker said, "There are issues on the public safety side that have got to be addressed, particularly on the 911 communications system. It has got to have some improvements."

That's important, but Stalnaker said ending encroachment is number one on the list. He promised the first dollars to roll-in would pay to buy land at the end of the Robins Air Force Base runway.

Stalnaker says $6 million from the Bibb County SPLOST for encroachment, plus Houston's $7 million and contributions from the Department of Defense would end the encroachment problem.

Robins is the only Air Logistics Center in the nation still dealing with the issue.

The first hearing on the SPLOST will be Tuesday, November 15th at the Houston County Annes on Carl Vinson Parkway in Warner Robins. It starts at 6:00 p.m.

The second hearing will be Thursday, November 17th in commission chambers at the Houston County Courthouse in Perry. That meeting also starts at 6:00 p.m.