Athens-Clarke County commissioners moved ahead Tuesday night with a plan to revamp how the county funds some transportation projects.
The changes would come to the county’s Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or TSPLOST. That’s a one percent tax, approved by Clarke County voters, that funds a list of transportation improvements. The current TSPLOST is set to meet its revenue goal much earlier than expected, meaning that county voters will vote on the next one in May 2026 instead of November, as originally scheduled.
Commissioners want to tweak the process leading up to that countywide vote.
One big thing that sets TSPLOST funding apart from other types of transportation funding is that potential TSPLOST projects can be submitted by members of the community. The current TSPLOST, approved in 2022, generated dozens of community-submitted projects.
Those projects, along with projects suggested by county staff, are evaluated by a citizens committee, which makes a list for commissioners to vote on and potentially change. That’s something that happened in 2022, when commissioners radically changed the project list to allocate millions for paving and other infrastructure improvements at the last minute, to the dismay of some in the citizens’ committee.
This time, some commissioners want to start by reserving a chunk of TSPLOST 2026’s expected revenue - $196.5 million – for infrastructure projects like paving and stormwater improvements. That would ensure adequate funding for those needs, but would also leave the citizens’ advisory committee with a smaller pot of money to work with in choosing projects.
“Before everybody's looking at proposals from the advisory committee, we could come back and consider pre-approving a certain list of things,” suggested District 6 Commissioner Jesse Houle.
District 7’s John Culpepper agreed with the need to look more intentionally at basic needs.
"I'd like to see us focused on infrastructure and things that we can use," he said. "So we don't keep increasing our general budget so much every year."
But, argued District 10 Commissioner Mike Hamby, the final decision is always up to the Commission, and they can allocate money as they see fit before turning final approval over to the voters.
"At the end of the day, we will see all the projects that get turned in and if we don't agree with the recommendation of of the citizens' committee, we can certainly take a different approach," Hamby pointed out.
That’s what happened last time, Houle responded, and it led to a messy process.
"It kind of left the committee having to determine whether they thought they should fund those things that we kind of know need to be funded by some portion of this. And so they ended up under funding some of them and then we turned around and changed that for our final vote," they said.
It would also make the process better for the community, Houle suggested.
District 9’s Ovita Thornton argued that predesignating some money, as Houle suggested, would also be more fair to the citizens on the advisory committee.
"They go in knowing very little about what is going on in all of the districts. They go in there like newbies, they don't know. We have to give them some clear guidelines so they so they can work with integrity," Thornton offered.
District 8 Commissioner Carol Myers argued that infrastructure improvements should be paid for out of the county’s general budget, but she agreed with Houle and Thornton.
"If we from our experience, as hopefully more than newbies, now know that these are ongoing expenses that we want to use the some of the TSPLOST money for, it would be more respectful to the people who are serving on this committee to help them and give them a smaller pot to work with," she said.
Commissioners voted to move ahead with the changes. Members of the citizens committee, who are selected by commissioners, will be determined by mid-August and the three-month window for community members to submit project proposals is set to open in September.
