By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

If you have an extra $60 million lying around, the Fayette County Commission wants to talk to you.

In coming weeks, the commission's jail committee will put together a packet of information on plans for a new jail and courthouse complex, including options for funding.

But commissioners probably won't decide how to fund the mammoth project until after county voters rule on the Fayette County Board of Education's special purpose local option sales tax proposal Sept. 21.

“I don't think we need to be making any grandiose decisions right in the middle of the school board's last few weeks [of educational efforts before the SPLOST referendum comes to a vote],” Commissioner Greg Dunn said last week during a jail committee meeting.

A sales tax is among the most popular options, but members of the jail committee are concerned that voters may not approve such a tax for the county project right on the heels of a vote on the school board's $90 million SPLOST proposal.

If both sales tax proposals were approved, the result would be an additional two cents per dollar charged on goods and services in Fayette, raising the tax from five cents to seven.

“People are going to get fed up,” said Sheriff Randall Johnson, a member of the jail committee.

Dunn said the commission is going to have to bite the bullet and build the jail, whether voters approve a sales tax or not. “The people in the county will just have to understand that we don't have a choice here,” he said. “It may be unpopular for awhile, but we're just going to have to go.”

With the current jail holding twice the number of inmates it was designed for, county officials have agreed for years now that if they don't build a new jail soon, federal courts will order them to, and will take control of the project away from the county.

Other options for funding the project include a bond issue (paid back over a period of years using the county's general fund), using impact fees or simply increasing property taxes enough to cover the cost.

A bond issue would cost less each year, but over the life of the bond would double the cost, said Commissioner Herb Frady, one of two county commissioners on the jail committee.

An additional option, said county attorney Bill McNally, would be to issue bonds and begin construction, then ask voters for a sales tax later to pay off the bonds faster.

Impact fees might defray some of the cost, but only a small part, said county manager Billy Beckett. Impact fees are charged to developers to recoup the cost of new county facilities needed to serve the new residents they bring in, but the county must prove that it is charging only enough to repay the cost added by the new residents.

All other costs must be paid by current residents.

The fourth option is unlikely. Property taxes in Fayette would shoot through the roof if tax rates were increased enough to pay for the construction outright.

In that scenario, the county would have to raise taxes enough to pay for construction as it is accomplished, spreading the cost over only two or three years. A mill of property tax in Fayette ($40 on a $100,000 property) provides about $2.5 million in revenue, so it would take 24 mills, or eight mills if spread over three years, to build the jail and courthouse.

The jail committee will present all the options to the Board of Commissioners, which will make a decision sometime after the Sept. 21 school board vote. “There's no unanimity on the board yet,” said Dunn. -