With allocations for the 2019 special purpose local option sales tax coming up, Catoosa County Economic Development Authority attorney Chad Young stressed the importance of adequately funding the authority through the SPLOST.
The authority borrows money from the county to make sites more appealing to retailers and developers, and SPLOST funds are then used to pay the county back. Making a site more appealing often means road improvements, new stoplights or new utilities.
"The retailer then indirectly pays the county back through property taxes and sales tax," Young said. "This way, it's not on the backs of taxpayers' property taxes."
The first year the economic development authority received SPLOST funding was 2014, and Young said the funds played a big role in enabling the authority to move forward with successful developments. The largest was Cabela's, which opened its 72,000-square-foot location in Fort Oglethorpe in 2015 after receiving $1.5 million from the authority to prepare the site.
Cabela's isn't the only development that has received funding from the authority. The authority also purchased the land on Battlefield Parkway in Ringgold, Ga., where a new sports medicine facility will be located. SPLOST funds are a big part of what made that possible, Young said.
Young declined to say what future projects the development authority is working on now. The 2019 SPLOST will run through 2024, and he said the difficulty of planning that far ahead is one reason he stresses the importance of authority funding.
During an intergovernmental meeting in July, Young said the county had put 2.7 percent of all SPLOST money over the last 23 years into economic development. The current SPLOST cycle has paid out around $6.7 million toward economic development, a figure Young said he hopes to see at least matched in the 2019 SPLOST cycle so the development authority can continue to bring in retailers and manufacturers. The county commission will determine how SPLOST funds are allocated.
"We have no idea what kind of opportunities are going to present themselves," he said. "A big manufacturer could call one day and say they need 1,000 acres. You never know when 'the one' is going to come calling, and you need to be able to move quickly when it happens. With a larger pot of funds, we could potentially do more."
Young said current priorities for the development authority are to bring in more environmentally friendly manufacturers and jobs for skilled laborers, but the organization also tries to cast a wide net in attracting businesses.
As the 2019 SPLOST is paid out, he's confident retail opportunities will continue to arise due to Catoosa's proximity to Interstate 75, he said.
"The more retail we have, the more we generate from sales taxes, too, which funds a lot of the county's programs," Young said.