The Union County School Board’s August meeting featured five public speakers praising the school system and supporting ESPLOST ahead of the November vote, followed by board discussions of the education sales tax and approval of action items on last Thursday’s agenda.
During the public comment period, residents Mickey Cummings, Jacob Grizzle, Scotty Jarrard, Jason Karnes and Matthew Mashburn either voiced support for the local 1% tax, thanked the board for its leadership, praised the schools in general or a combination of all three.
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At the conclusion of the public comments, all five board members and Superintendent John Hill spoke about ESPLOST and some of the reasons behind putting a continuation back before voters.
Board Member Janna Akins pointed out that the tax has been in effect since 1998, so suddenly removing that source of revenue would create significant challenges: “Depending on the outcome (in November), things for our school system could fundamentally change.”
Backing up Akins, Hill pointed to annual recurring technology costs, along with the post-pandemic increase in the cost of buses and fleet vehicles. As an example, Hill said a basic, bare-bones maintenance truck has increased in price from $21,000 to $43,000 since 2019.
He added that state-mandated curriculum items will also see a jump in cost over the coming years.
“These (curriculum items) are not optional,” he said. “This is not our teachers coming to us saying, ‘We would like this.’ This is the Department of Education, through legislation, mandating we purchase this curriculum.”
Board Member Jason McCarter added that if voters do not pass the ESPLOST, local taxpayers would have to make up the difference through other means, potentially including a significant property tax increase.
Board Member Patrick White brought up the possibility of a 50% increase in property taxes without ESPLOST. McCarter responded by contrasting the two taxes.
“Which would you rather have? I know what I would rather have,” McCarter said. “Property tax or a sales tax, which is a penny, and you won’t notice it. It’s been there since 1998.”
Board Chair Tony Hunter similarly aimed to keep things in perspective: “We are blessed in this nation to keep the majority of what we earn, and we’re not asking for a tremendous amount.”
Sales taxes are often viewed as a fairer form of taxation, as more people get the chance to contribute, and Hill cited an estimate from the Blairsville-Union County Chamber of Commerce that about 60% of the ESPLOST revenue generated in the county comes from non-residents.
Hunter continued by encouraging Union County voters to view the tax as an opportunity to invest in students now to set them up for long-term success.
“If (the students) come out of our system and don’t have a direction, I know the direction they usually go,” Hunter said. “So, we can invest in them now, or we will invest in them later.”
Additionally, the board addressed criticism that it was not releasing a detailed list of capital projects showcasing how ESPLOST funds would be spent over five years of collections if the renewal referendum passes.
Board Member Julia Barnett pointed out that a project list is already included in the published referendum language, which is true, and the state generally provides school systems with a certain degree of flexibility in project prioritization given that no one can see the future.
McCarter brought up just one of the needed improvements at the middle school as an example of why the board cannot always provide an exact cost and timetable for every project in advance.
“It takes money to figure out how much money we can spend,” he said. “When I first got (on the board), there were conversations about the HVAC system in the middle school, and we thought it was going to be a million dollars cheaper than what it actually turned out to be.
“Decisions had to be made at that point because we had an elementary school to be built. So, we had to make a decision: can we get a few more years out of the HVAC and deal with it on a future ESPLOST? And we’re here now.”
Akins also cited the visitors fieldhouse at the football stadium, which at one point came in twice as much as initially projected. That forced the system to take a different approach, including separating from the original architect, hiring another and bringing the project back within budget.
McCarter noted that if the board had been locked into a specific project list and timetable, it would have had less flexibility to deal with the additional fieldhouse expenditures.
Among the approved action items that night were a banking services award to SouthState Bank for Fiscal Year 2027; memorandums of understanding and contracts involving nursing students, Head Start and security updates; the FY27 CTAE Budget; the FY27 Final Budget; and more.
