BRUCE CAPPS: T-SPLOST offers ‘vaguely-worded’ promises

On March 19, the citizens of Dougherty County and the city of Albany will be asked to vote a new tax on themselves, a tax that could cost each family about $700 a year for the next five years. In return, the residents have been promised improvements to streets, intersections, sidewalks, the airport, and other transportation projects.

But once the initiative is approved, the public, along with their elected representatives, will lose control over the use of the funds, including how projects are prioritized and even whether a project gets funded. So while T-SPLOST may promise a certain outcome, there is no guarantee that any specific improvement will occur. The project lists, compiled completely without public input, contain only vaguely worded categories without specific project locations and budgets. Instead, T-SPLOST seems to be an unrestricted opportunity for the city/county administrations to fund a wish list of spending projects.

But T-SPLOST also gives the commissioners the appearance of tackling hard issues without doing the difficult work of governing, such as approving tax increases. With T-SPLOST, the commissioners are not approving a tax or a tax increase because T-SPLOST is approved by the citizens of Albany/Dougherty. And if past practices are any indication, the nitty gritty of determining spending priorities and budgets will be ceded by the commissions to the city/county administrations.

T-SPLOST funding comes from a 1 percent increase in the local sales tax, which, if approved, will bring the sales tax on most goods and services purchased locally to 8 percent. And while some of the taxes will certainly be paid by consumers from outside of Dougherty County, that portion of tax collections is indisputably unknown. Any suggestion that consumers from outside the county will pay a significant portion of the tax, for example, half of the tax collections, is just that, a suggestion that is far from factual.

T-SPLOST is also a consumption tax. Consumption taxes typically fall hardest on lower- and fixed-income residents because sales taxes consume a greater percentage of their income and because this group of residents consumes locally. And T-SPLOST is primarily a roads funding initiative. Because lower-income households and the elderly often do not have cars, they will again share a greater burden from the tax. And to add insult to injury, T-SPLOST does not apply to gasoline and airplane fuels, a small but significant subsidy to motorists and aircraft users and passengers.

Among the T-SPLOST projects is an allocation of $3.5 million for “general aviation improvements to include new facilities to support fixed-base operations,” whatever that means. Under SPLOST V and VI, the city has spent almost $5 million towards airport improvements with another $2.3 million proposed in SPLOST VII. While there may be a business development argument in favor of these expenses, they also directly benefit a very small percentage of the local population.

Sidewalk improvements have been allocation $7.4 million of T-SPLOST funds. Regrettably, the city does not have a plan for spending this money. The idea is to develop a budget and spending plan after the funds are approved. This should be of little comfort to voters. Especially as politicians, administrators and traffic engineers seem to be unable to grasp the idea that pedestrians use sidewalks not because they exist, but because the sidewalk leads somewhere. Albany is already littered with very expensive sidewalks that are hardly ever used because they go nowhere.

Recently, the City Commission voted to give away an alley for free, apparently a common city practice. Regardless, T-SPLOST allocates $8.5 million to the very questionable practice of paving alleys. SPLOSTs V through VII allocated $13 million to improve the city’s alleys. T-SPLOST proposes another $8.5 million combined. Alley-paving began 30 years ago. Before throwing additional public funds at this effort, maybe it is time to re-examine the value of paved alleys.

But road improvements are by far the largest category of expected expenditures. Regrettably, traffic departments tend to over-engineer road projects. Without significant supervision, engineers and planners work to solve problems that either do not exist or they provide optimized solutions, which are impractical and very expensive. Without more supervision than is currently envisioned by this initiative, the T-SPLOST tax gives city/county engineers the perfect opportunity to indulge their worse tendencies, at the expense of consumers.

Elected officials and administrators have frequently attempted to portray the initiative as essential if Albany/Dougherty is to remain attractive to outside investment. But do newly paved residential streets and alleys improve the city’s chances of attracting new businesses? It’s doubtful. Very few of the T-SPLOST projects can be directly linked to economic development. In fact, no effort has been made to positively identify specific transportation infrastructure projects that would enhance Albany/Dougherty as a transportation or logistics hub. Worse yet, most of the improvements are backward looking. They respond to historic concerns and do little or nothing to prepare the Albany/Dougherty for upcoming changes in transportation systems or technology.

There is no question that many streets and sidewalks in Albany/Dougherty need to be improved. This is partly the result of deliberate decisions by the city and county to re-allocate revenues to other priorities. Regardless, investment in infrastructure is needed. However, the current T-SPLOST process and project lists are deficient. As voters do not have the ability to select appropriate projects, they should reject T-SPLOST. Instead, voters should demand a voice in the project selection process. They should demand a detailed and specific list of projects, each with a distinct budget. And they should require an audit process to ensure that the approved projects are completed and within budget.

Bruce Capps is a retiree who, among other civic activities, serves as president of the Friends of the Dougherty County Public Library.