Hart County voters will vote for or against the renewal of ESPLOST VI (Educational Special Purpose Local Options Sales Tax) next Tuesday, including a bond issuance that would result in $7 million of new debt.
ESPLOST VI is a one-penny sales tax that, if approved to renew by voters, could be used to raise up to $30.58 million for use in special projects by the school system.
Hart County Superintendent Jennifer Carter said the $7 million bond is included in order to get a jumpstart on projects included in ESPLOST VI.
“The bond will allow the district to kick start projects immediately,” Carter said. “The many improvements that will occur at Hart County High School are dependent on moving the transportation and maintenance facilities, which will be done very quickly by using bond funds.”
Carter said that Hart County Schools included bonds in four of the five ESPLOST referendums, with ESPLOST III in 2009 being the lone exception.
“The ESPLOST funding plans have typically included a combination of bond proceeds, pay-as-you-go from ESPLOST collections, State Capital Outlay funding, when projects qualify, and other local funds,” she said. “The district sold $9 million of bonds in 1999, $19 million in 2004, $8.5 million in 2015, and $5 million in 2019.”
ESPLOST VI, if passed, would begin being collected immediately after the current ESPLOST V collections hit the $18 million cap, which Associate Superintendent Brooks Mewborn suspects will be this summer.
“It’s probably going to be July or August when the $18 million is collected,” he said. “We can’t collect a penny more than that. The way it works is when you know you’re going to hit the cap ahead of time, we have to plan ahead to make sure we can keep collecting. This would allow us to continue the penny [collections], but there will never be a time where two pennies are collected.”
Mewborn explained that without the $7 million bond, the system would be unable to start the ESPLOST VI projects, even if passed, until ESPLOST V collections are finished.
“If we pass this on Tuesday, I want to start on this transportation project on Wednesday,” Mewborn said. “But we won’t have ESPLOST VI money until ESPLOST V money is fully collected, which could be September. In order to do so, you have to have bond money in order to kick start the projects.”
Carter maintained that the decision to take on the debt is not taken lightly by the system.
“The Hart County Charter System takes the issue of debt very seriously,” she said. “The district has been very conservative in its use of bonds and the amount of bonds issued in prior ESPLOSTS and is taking that same approach with this referendum. Using short term debt to fund projects that will immediately have a positive impact on our children was deemed the appropriate path by our team.”
Carter explained the debt would be paid off with the collections from the ESPLOST. When asked by The Hartwell Sun if the taking on of debt could have repercussions on taxpayers, Carter said the bond would not negatively affect the general fund.
“The bonds will be used to complete ESPLOST VI projects and paid back during ESPLOST VI with collections,” she said. “The bonds are short term debt that will be paid back with the 60-month collections and not have a negative impact on the general fund.”
According to Mewborn, the new $30.58 million cap that would be established for ESPLOST VI if it passes is based on projections with analysts forecasting what collections could come in. Mewborn said the estimate came from projecting $480,000 in ESPLOST VI collections each month with a three percent increase every year.
“People want to ask why the jump from $18 million to $30 million and I tell everyone, the cost of building materials is astronomical right now,” Mewborn said. “The projects we’ve been planning came from a needs assessment and we sat with analysts to project the collections. We took the most conservative approach to establish the $30.58 million cap.”
In an earlier interview with The Sun, Carter explained that the top priority of ESPLOST VI, if approved, would be expanding student parking at HCHS to include the area currently taken up by the district’s transportation and maintenance facilities. Those facilities would move to newly acquired land off of Bowman Highway, purchased by the school district for $509,355 from GF Parker Inc. in September 2022.
In Monday’s Board of Education meeting, the board voted unanimously to approve the five-year facilities plan, which includes the ESPLOST VI projects.
Early voting on ESPLOST VI will end Friday with Election Day on Tuesday, March 21.