A-C sales tax projects closely watched

Athens-Clarke commissioners will be keeping an eye on costs as they choose sales tax-funded projects to put before voters next year.

Under state law, a 1 percent sales tax approved by voters can go only toward building infrastructure and other capital costs.

But once the roads, parks and fire stations are finished, someone has to staff and maintain them - and that money comes out of local residents' pocketbooks.

The county government added an average of about $500,000 a year to its spending since 2005 to staff and maintain SPLOST projects, including adding 22 new positions, mostly firefighters at the new Station No. 9 off Danielsville Road, according to past budgets.

Commissioners say they want to lower that number when the next round of the special-purpose, local-option sales tax starts in 2010.

"In the past, SPLOST items have raised our tax burden," Commissioner Ed Robinson said. "We want to lower our cost burden."

Officials proposed adding no more than $4 million to the county's general fund budg

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