Wed, Mar 21, 2007

By LAUREN McCALLISTER
The Brunswick News

Tuesday was a good day for Glynn County Board of Education Chair Dave Smith.
At about 8 p.m., Smith learned that voters had approved a hotly debated education special purpose local option sales tax with 57 percent of the vote.

The proposal to levy a 1 percent sales tax for school construction passed with 4,314 vote in favor to 3,227 votes against.

Of Glynn County's more than 40,000 registered voters, 18.5 percent, or 7,600, cast ballots in the special election.

Smith said the board's hard work – and the work of a citizen committee that campaigned for the penny sales tax increase – paid off.

"I'm happy for the community," Smith said after the results were tallied. "I think in a few years people will look back and see this was a good thing – even some of the people who have been opposed."

The facilities list, now officially approved by voters, sets out a rigorous building schedule the board is mandated by law to follow.

The ESPLOST, which is expected to raise about $92 million over its three-and-a-half year life, will be used to construct a new Glynn Middle School, as well as two other middle schools – one in Sterling and another in southwest Glynn County.

New ninth-grade centers will be built at both Brunswick High School and Glynn Academy, and $5 million will be used to construct a charter technical school.

Additionally, significant renovations and upgrades will be made on other campuses and $10 million of tax money will be used to pay off old debt.

It's an exciting time for the school system, said Michael Bull, superintendent of Glynn County schools.

"We can now turn vision into reality and we are going to make the community proud. We are going to raise student achievement and we are going to be fiscally responsible," Bull said Tuesday night.

Effective July 1, the sales tax increase will raise Glynn County's sales tax rate to 7 cents on the dollar. Revenue from the ESPLOST will be delivered to the board of education in quarterly installments. The first revenue check is expected in October.

Smith said it's been a long road since the school board first conceived the idea of getting a sales tax to fund facilities projects.

In August 2002, Glynn County voters defeated an ESPLOST referendum by a 70 percent margin. And in recent weeks, opposition to the proposed tax hike sounded loudly across the community.

"It was hard to know the outcome," Smith said.

In the end, though, the need to provide students with newer facilities won the vote in the board's favor.

Exiting the polls at Goodyear Elementary School Tuesday afternoon, Brunswick resident Eric Turner said that was the reason he voted in favor of the tax.

"I think it's a great thing," Turner said. "It would help the community out a lot. I've seen how it helps other counties out that have it – like Camden County – and I just think it would be a good thing."