Being the largest municipality in Carroll County, Carrollton City, like the Carroll County government, would have the option of using revenue collected from a new transportation special purpose local option sales tax, to shift funding that would have been used for transportation projects, back into the general fund.
The councilmen that I have spoken with and the Mayor are in support of this T-SPLOST. It would be about $3.25 million a year in additional funds for Carrollton,” said City Manager, Tim Grizzard. “That would allow us to do a lot of the projects that we dream about and a lot of the projects in our long term plan. Also T-SPLOST would free up general fund money to continue to fund our public safety.”
As far as funding transportation projects through a T-SPLOST, Grizzard admited that the city does have the resources or avenues to the resources to pay for projects that are deemed necessary or important. He said collection of T-SPLOST would allow for the projects to be accelerated.
“We want to do corridor improvements on every major corridor including Alabama Street, Bankhead, Maple Street. We want Green Belt spurs from Rome Street, from Dixie and the Southwire and Tanner area, and eventually out to the Oak Mountain Area. The Economic boom that we are seeing in downtown and seeing on the square, we want to see that grow out into all the arteries in town,” said Grizzard.
Carroll County voters will consider the new 1% T-SPLOST proposal at polls this November. If approved, most items purchased in Carroll County would come with a total of 8 cents on the dollar in sales taxes.