Residents are always concerned about taxes going up from year to year, while wanting the most to be done with the taxes collected. Issues like this are being addressed by the administration office representing Hall County's government while seeking further approval for tax revenue in the next election.
Hall County Administrator Zach Propes recently spoke with AccessWDUN's "Mornings on Maine Street" program to review what is currently on the plans surrounding the SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) for the county. The current SPLOST in place for Hall County is a one percent sales tax looking to fund capital outlay projects for Hall County and all the cities located fully or partially in the county.
Propes says that the current SPLOST in place is helping to covering more than $100 milllion in road projects, with the number one project including the Spout Springs Phase II Widening Project just over three miles of work from past Union Church Road to down past Friendship Road. Propes says there is also over $55 million worth of other resurfacing projects throughout the county, Propes also says the cities within Hall County would also be allocated about $95 million for their road work projects, to be handled separately by each city's governments to handle their own projects.
Propes also told WDUN's Mornings on Maine Street program that Hall County is running out of space to operate within its current judicial courtrooms. The current SPLOST is also going toward the current judicial expansion project for another juducial expansion complex project--the county's single-largest project in the program. While operating out of nine total different buildings, the county is trying to address the space limitations that has been growing over the past 15 years. Propes says while consolidation has been made, they are just running out of court space for their growing needs. Officials are hoping to expand on three, final site locations, but want to leverage the main court house in downtown Gainesville with the funding.
A new, 200 acre park in South Hall County on Spout Springs Road is being made through revitalized property already owned by the county for community use on property near the sewer plant area, according to Propes. Also, the county would work to maintain several other existing parks and waterway docks through the current SPLOST, which has been in effect since the first approval by voters 1985.
If approved by the voters during the upcoming the elections in November, Propes says that the ninth SPLOST program on the Hall County voter ballot would begin on July 4, 2026, when the existing SPLOST program expires. Propes has emphasized,, "Our very first SPLOST program started back in 1985 so Hall County's been blessed for 40 years to have this one percent sales tax for capital outlay, and to keep it simple, this has enhanced our quality of life here in Hall County. I quite often will tell groups when I speak, Hall County and its cities would look very different without this one percent. It's contributed a billion dollars worth of funding to manage capital outlay."
