Stephens Co. Forward Funding More SPLOST Road Work

Stephens County Commissioners approve the issuing of more bonds to forward fund road work in the county.

On Tuesday, county commissioners unanimously approved the signing of General Obligation Bond Documents for SPLOST VI Roads and Bridges.

County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said this is the second such bond issue the county has done based off of SPLOST VI.

“The first one was $4.5 million and that has gotten us through three summers and you have seen a lot of road work being done out there, paving and pipe rebuilding and culvert work, so this would be the second issue so we can keep this work going and not have to do pay-as-you-go work for the next three years,” said Ayers.

This bond issue will be for a total of $2 million at an interest rate of 1.49 percent from First Citizens.

Ayers said doing this will allow road work throughout the county to pick back up in the Spring without delay.

“We will not have a stop in service at all,” said Ayers. “In January, we will go off and look at the list of roads that has been prioritized and now we have a lot we can take off that list, they have moved to the ‘excellent’ stage, and we already know we are going to go top some of the roads we laid the base this year. We have LMIG money, we have some other money, so we do not plan a stop in service.”

Monies collected through the current Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, SPLOST VI, will re-pay the bonds.

When Stephens County voters approved SPLOST VI in 2013, that approval included a provision allowing Stephens County to borrow up to $8.5 million by issuing bonds in order to forward fund SPLOST projects.

Ayers said the county is confident that SPLOST revenues will come in at a rate sufficient to re-pay the bonds completely with the SPLOST revenues.