Jackson Progress-Argus

Robert William Costley

Dear Parents and Community Members:

I am now in the middle of my third month on the job as superintendent of Butts County Schools, and it has been a fantastic way to spend a winter. Starting Dec. 1, I had to hit the ground running, and I want to thank you all for the great welcome we have been blessed to receive.

Entering a community for the first time, it is very important that a new superintendent get to know parents, community members, and students as soon as possible. Luckily for me, I had a very important occasion to travel the county and meet many of our neighbors in a very short time. What was that occasion? The upcoming voter referendum for the Education-SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) on March 6.

Just by coincidence as I was arriving, the Board of Education in November approved a resolution to hold the voter referendum to continue the penny sales tax for schools that our community has allowed for the past 15 years. My job as I walked into the door, then, was to hit the road and spread the message and meet with local civic groups like the Chamber of Commerce and Partners for Smart Growth, our school PTO's, and our local school councils.

And what a wonderful experience this has been! I have had the privilege to speak to all these many informed and dedicated citizens of Butts County, and I have had the opportunity to talk about two things I am very passionate about: children and the taxpayer trust. Through sharing the advantages of the E-SPLOST, I have the ability to talk about both topics at the same time.

So what is this E-SPLOST all about, and why I am so excited about it? Well, the answer is, I cannot find a downside of continuing the SPLOST. It does just about everything we could possibly want for a community in terms of improving the quality of life and reducing the burden on the local taxpayer.

First, by voting “yes” to E-SPLOST on March 6, you are not voting for a new tax. We have had a penny sales tax for our school system for many years, and you will be voting merely to continue and keep that penny sales tax for the next five years. And the E-SPLOST is a great thing for two key groups: parents/children and property owners.

If you are a mom or dad in our school system, you have a huge reason to be excited about this referendum. Our children are finally going to see some upgrades in technology and instructional resources that some of the kids in other counties have had for years.

For the first time since we have had the E-SPLOST in Butts County, we do not need to build a new school. With the past SPLOST periods, we have built our fine elementary and middle schools, but our high school is only 22 years old. So instead of spending 35 million dollars on a new high school, we are going to instead take care of the high school we have while taking care of some much needed equipment and improvements that our kids have been waiting to receive.

With a “yes” vote for E-SPLOST, Jackson High School and other facilities will receive upgrades, safety improvements, and replacements in painting, flooring, lighting, parking, heating and air, and roofing. Many of these facilities and equipment are aging and decaying, and we will finally be able to replace and upgrade them. Not only that, but our students will receive new computers, new Internet and wireless capability, and new school buses. Specifically, our plans for modernizing our instructional technology will provide our boys and girls the tools they need to compete for jobs and college scholarships in the 21st Century. They deserve it!

So what about our taxpayers, many of whom do not have children in the school system? How does E-SPLOST help the property owners? Well, you have plenty of reason to be excited about voting “yes” for E-SPLOST as well.

Plain and simple, by voting “yes” to continue the E-SPLOST, we will have the best chance to lower the millage rate in Butts County we have seen in years. If you are a land owner, homeowner, or business owner in Butts County, then you definitely want the E-SPLOST to continue because it will give the Board of Education more flexibility this summer, and in the years ahead, to reduce the burden on local property tax payers.

With your vote of “yes” on March 6, you will be voting to continue the penny sales tax and to allow the BOE to refinance its old debt with a much smaller set of bonds. To illustrate, we expect to earn a total of $19-21 million in revenue from the penny sales tax over the next five years, and we will sell bonds for a small fraction of that total, around $7.5 million to be repaid in full over the five years of the SPLOST period.

How will this help land owners? Using the new bonds, we will pay off the old debt that has been such a burden to our property owners. If you were to vote “no” to SPLOST, we will have to send around $1 million of your local property taxes to a bond company this September, instead of putting it back in your pockets and into our students' classroom. But if you vote “yes,” we will use pennies from SPLOST to pay off that debt instead of your property taxes. This will immediately give the BOE more flexibility to lower the millage rate this year.

In addition, we can use pennies instead of property taxes to pay for many equipment and capital purchases for our school system, such as replacing heating and air, roofing, buses, and safety upgrades to school and athletic facilities. We can also use the penny sales tax to purchase textbooks and fine arts equipment. Thus, we can take these purchases off the property owners' backs, and use a much fairer tax like the sales tax instead.

And that's the best part of all about E-SPLOST. People who do not live in our county help us pay our bills. E-SPLOST is a sales tax, which means anyone who spends money in our county shares the load. This means that visitors and tourists from local counties and Interstate 75 stop in our county and leave their pennies behind. Why would we let them leave our county with their pennies? Let's let people who don't live in our community help pay our bills.

There are many more up-sides of the E-SPLOST, like the fact that with these new projects listed above, many of our local stores and contractors will receive more opportunity to work and sell their goods. This means more jobs and more economic health for the families of Jackson, Flovilla, and Jenkinsburg.

The key is, we have to come together as a community and have a vision for our county's future, which always starts with our children. It is an exciting, important time for our home and for our children, and I look forward to all we will accomplish together. Thanks so much for your support, faith, and prayers.

Robert Costley is the superintendent of Butts County Schools.