Closed-door sessions are being held right before LOST hearing
Effingham County and the cities of Rincon, Springfield and Guyton are holding closed-door meetings today and tomorrow to discuss pending litigation.
The parties are not identifying the topic of the sessions. But they are all due in court Monday morning for a hearing about how to distribute local-option sales tax (LOST) proceeds.
If the parties were to reach an agreement on their own, they wouldn’t have to fight it out in court before Senior Superior Court Judge Albert Rahn III in a hearing set to begin at 9 a.m. Monday.
Distribution of the tax is renegotiated every decade, based on Census data. The debate is an important one, determining the fate of about $8.4 million a year countywide.
How much people pay in property taxes could be affected by the way the money is distributed.
The cities and the county proposed their “best and final offers” to the court on March 1. The county's offer asked for the distribution to remain the same as it is currently: Effingham County 77.50 percent; Rincon 13.84 percent; Springfield 5.76 percent; and Guyton 2.90 percent.
Rincon and Guyton worked together to come up with these numbers: Effingham County 76 percent; Rincon, 15.16 percent; Springfield, 5.82 percent; and Guyton 3.02 percent.
That's for 2013. Their proposal calls for the percentages for the cities to increase in stages over the 10-year life of the sales tax.
In 2014, they call for: Effingham County 74 percent; Rincon 16.83 percent; Springfield, 6.05 percent; and Guyton, 3.12 percent.
In 2015, the numbers would change to: Effingham County, 72 percent; Rincon, 18.5 percent; Springfield, 6.27 percent; and Guyton, 3.23 percent.
In 2017 and through the end of the sales tax, in 2022, the Rincon and Guyton proposal calls for: Effingham County, 71 percent; Rincon, 19.16 percent; Springfield, 6.60 percent and Guyton 3.24 percent.
Springfield's proposal was for: Effingham County, 75.84 percent; Rincon 13.84 percent; Springfield, 7.42 percent; and Guyton, 2.90 percent.
Rincon has argued that it has most of the retail business and should get a larger share of the tax. Springfield has said it hasn't been getting enough to compensate for having so much property that doesn't pay taxes, such as county buildings, schools and the hospital.
The county argued that it really should receive all of the LOST money because service delivery agreements, entered into in April 2011, compensate the cities for the services that they provide.
The sales tax provides revenue for local government services while reducing the tax burden to property owners.
The governments have been working together since last summer to try to reach an agreement on how to distribute the money. When they couldn’t come up with a solution on their own or with a mediator, the issue headed to court.
--G.G. Rigsby.