Mayor: SPLOST Concept Is the Fairest Tax

In this week's "Three Questions With the Mayor," Dacula Mayor Jimmy Wilbanks provides an update on the latest city news and discusses the upcoming vote on the SPLOST extension.

Dacula Patch: Later this year, voters will be asked to extend the SPLOST. In your opinion, what Dacula projects funded by the current SPLOST have been the most beneficial?

Mayor Wilbanks: Gwinnett County residents will be asked to extend the Special Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) for another five years around the July time frame for an referendum to be held on Nov. 5, 2013. For Dacula residents, the current 2009 SPLOST has provided funding for road rebuilding, administrative facilities, public safety improvements, and recreational activities. Most of the money from the 2009 SPLOST will eventually be spent to reclaim city streets and to provide a new maintenance facility (which we opened last week and will be having the Grand Opening for the public at a time to be determined). The City has spent a little money on public safety equipment and we have built out Olde Mill Park in historic Downtown Dacula.

I believe that the most important expenditures that we have made is in the area of road improvements. Transportation projects are expensive. By using SPLOST and leveraging other grant funds, the City has been able to make a large dent in the transportation needs of the City without resorting to increasing property taxes. While I wouldn’t dare try to speak for Gwinnett County, I believe the same to be true for the Board of Commissioners. The City itself shares with the entire County in the SPLOST, and it is a way of capturing what I call “pass through” funding. If you spend some time in the area of City Hall on any week day morning from about 5 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., you will be surprised at the amount of traffic on our major streets (Harbins, Dacula Road, GA 316, and Winder Highway). Almost every car out and about at that time is from out of county. If those travelers buy even a cup of coffee in Gwinnett County, all of us share in the penny tax imposed by SPLOST. That’s a portion of a penny that you will not have to spend to make SPLOST improvements in Gwinnett County and Dacula.

While nobody (me included) likes to pay taxes, the SPLOST concept is probably the fairest. Should the voters of Gwinnett County allow the penny extension in 2013, the City of Dacula will probably continue in the same vein as before on improving roads and administrative facilities in Dacula. We make that decision on Thursday night at the regular Council meeting, and as we get closer to referendum time will share the project list on which the vote will be cast. You can see a post on the daculaga.gov website that explains how we have spent SPLOST money in the past. Here is the address: http://daculaga.gov/using-2005-sales-tax-money-2/

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