Dalton officials now want to use SPLOST money to build performing arts center

Published 7:29 am Thursday, September 1, 2011

Just minutes after the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners voted on Wednesday to put a two-year Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) on the Nov. 8 ballot, city of Dalton officials asked to change the city projects that tax would fund.

To make those changes, commissioners would have to rescind their vote and approve a new referendum, with a new list of projects, for the November ballot.

“We said we would if they would send us a letter or a warm body explaining exactly why we should do this,” said Board Chairman Mike Babb. “I don’t know if this will give the citizens a warm and fuzzy feeling but we are willing to work with the city if they are unhappy.”

Babb said commissioners have to send the referendum to the Board of Elections and Registrars no later than Friday to have it placed on the November ballot.

“I expect we will have another called meeting to vote on this on Friday,” Babb said.

Dalton officials now want to use part of the city’s share of any SPLOST money to help fund a performing arts center. City Administrator Ty Ross said the center is expected to cost about $12 million, with $6 million coming from the city and the rest from Dalton State College, Dalton Public Schools and other sources.

“We would be leveraging SPLOST dollars and getting a 100 percent match from other sources,” Ross said.

Dalton Board of Education Chairman Steve Williams said that board has agreed to participate in a performing arts project with the city.

“As I understand it, this was before I came on the board 10 years ago, the city transferred some money to us when the middle school was built with the idea that an auditorium would be constructed out there,” Williams said. “An auditorium was not constructed out there, so we have been escrowing the money to use in some fashion.”

Williams said that fund currently comes to about $3 million, but he said that not all of it may be available for the performing arts project.

“One of the options for our middle school would be to construct an auditorium, but to initially modify it for use as classroom space to help solve the overcrowding problem. That’s not a done deal. But it’s one of the options on the table,” Williams said.

Mayor David Pennington said that when commissioners first started talking about a SPLOST, it was for four years and the city was looking at funding a performing arts center from its share.

“It was one of our projects and it also had some county money in there,” said Pennington. “When the commissioners started talking about a two-year SPLOST, they took the county money out, and we took our money out.”

City officials said the opportunity to apply additional money to the SPLOST funds is why they have decided to change their project list. They said they did not yet have specifics on the center, such as how large it will be or where it will be located.

“That will be a community discussion over the next couple of years,” said Ross.

The city is expected to get about $8.7 million from the SPLOST, and the list approved by the Board of Commissioners on Wednesday calls for that money to be spent on projects such as improvements to city streets and new bicycle and walking trails ($4.6 million), capital equipment for the fire department ($1.75 million) and capital equipment for the police department ($550,000).

Ross said Wednesday afternoon he isn’t sure exactly which of those projects the city would drop from its list to add the performing arts center.

“I’ve got that up on my computer right now, working on that,” he said.

Pennington said the city plans to complete the projects that are dropped from the SPLOST list through its regular budget over the next few years.

“Those are things that we planned to do anyway,” he said.