The document analyzes the prospects for passage of a proposed penny sales tax increase in Georgia to fund transportation projects. It finds that while transportation taxes often pass nationally, Georgia voters recently rejected a smaller car tag tax increase. Support and opposition are emerging along partisan lines. Passage will depend on promoting tangible community benefits versus historical conservative opposition to new taxes in Georgia. The tax could raise $19.3 billion over 10 years but benefits would vary significantly by region.

1. 2012 Statewide T-SPLOST
An analysis of the prospects of passage in the July 2012 Election
Tripp Cook
May, 2011
Executive summary
In a political compromise to jumpstart what state leadership considered to be recent under-investment
in state transportation infrastructure, the 2010 legislature passed HB 277. This bill puts a penny sales
tax to voters in each of 12 regional commission district (via a local Transportation Special-Purpose Local-
Option Sales Taxes, or T-SPLOST) to fund and restrict transportation projects that are part of the larger
state T-SPLOST spending plan. Although transportation referendums continue to pass at a rate of about
3:1 nationally, this referendum almost guarantees piecemeal results. To adequately promote (or defeat)
the referendum, localized communities efforts would be needed to wage what is essentially 12 issue
races instead of a single one statewide. Although the elected officeholders show no clear partisan bias
in either direction, the conservative and rural leanings of many state regions imply that a new tax will be
a hard sell.
The tax could raise $19.3B for transportation spending over 10 years, beginning in 2013. The range of
local regional commission district benefits vary significantly:
 The lion’s share of this would be raised (and therefore spent) in the Atlanta Regional
Commission district, possibly $8.9B.
 The lowest expected regional amount of tax raised over this ten year period would be only
$440M in the Heart of Georgia district around the stretch of highway I-16 between Macon and
Savannah.
Passing the bill
The house bill was principally sponsored by:
 Vance Smith,
 Ben Harbin,
 Donna Sheldon,
 Mark Burkhalter,
 Jay Shaw, and
 Jerry Keen.
The senate sponsor was Jeff Mullis. Both Speaker David Ralston and Lt. Gov Casey Cagle strongly
supported the bill.
House minority leader DuBose Porter was critical of the bill’s lack of meaningful support for MARTA,
and he joined a strange-bedfellow coalition of pro-MARTA Democrats and anti-tax Republicans led by
Bobby Franklin in voting against the bill. (The bill specifically forbids MARTA from receiving any revenue

2. from this regional transportation tax, the only local transit system in a state of more than 120 taxpayer-
funded transit systems to be restricted from these funds. Instead, the legislation gives MARTA more
flexibility by suspending for three years the usual requirement that MARTA spend at least 50 percent of
its tax revenue on capital expenses rather than operations.) The final votes in each chamber were both
strongly for passage:
House Vote #887 Yea(141) Nay(29) NV(4) Exc(6)
Senate Vote #797 Yea(43) Nay(8) NV(2) Exc(3)
Stages of implementation: Regional Roundtables choose projects
The bill calls for each region to have a leadership board called a Regional Roundtable for the purposes of
holding town hall meetings and choosing the local projects worthy of new funds. From these meetings
with the public, lists of projects are created and refined over the next year.
 The initial “Unconstrained List” of projects will be generated by the regions and submitted to
the DOT by early summer 2011. Currently, the state DOT is receiving these unrestrained wish
lists, and the ARC region submitted its Unconstrained List proposal to DOT in April.
 These longer wish lists of projects will be refined into a shorter “Constrained Draft List” of
locked-in projects by the end of the summer, and they will be refined by the DOT and locked
into “Constrained Final Investment Lists” by the end of the fall.
Political efforts already underway
Republican business leaders are solidly for the penny sales tax. The Metro Atlanta Chamber of
Commerce has already launched a campaign to promote the tax proposal, and the Georgia Chamber has
created a subsidiary organization called the Georgia Transportation Alliance whose initial sole purpose is
the passage of the T-SPLOST. In comparison to the organization of leaders who support the tax, the
opposition to the tax has not formalized. Although Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed supports the measure,
many other Fulton and DeKalb mayors and city councils (specifically Sandy Springs, Alpharetta, Milton,
Mountain Park and Johns Creek) were initially loudly opposed to the new initiative because of the
“double penny” issue; the burden of MARTA still falls primarily on Fulton and DeKalb counties, and the
new tax would increase their tax to two cents per dollar for transportation. However, in February the
North Fulton Mayors Association had a change of heart (or else, more simply, their bluff was called) and
announced a plan to join DeKalb County mayors in promoting the tax plan. Outside of Atlanta, papers
like the Rome News-Tribune and the Jackson Herald have published editorials strongly opposed to the
tax, but these voices are currently disjointed and without a champion.
Polling, state precedent and national trends
Just last year, a $10 car tag levy on the November ballot was defeated that would have extended much-
needed emergency health care into exurban and rural Georgia. This amount would be significantly less
than the amount an average voter will spend on the proposes sales tax, and its defeat should worry
advocates of the new T-SPLOST. (It is worth noting that the Georgia Chamber also supported this tax for

3. emergency health care funds, and its defeat may explain the chamber’s more mobilized response to this
new tax initiative.) The overall results of the referendum were:
Yes No
Statewide 47.4% 52.6%
However, of interest is that although only 15 counties in the state approved the tag levy, Cobb was one
of them:
Yes No
Bryan 53% 47%
Bulloch 56% 44%
Candler 54% 46%
Chatham 61% 39%
Clarke 58% 42%
Clayton 50% 50%
Cobb 51% 49%
DeKalb 58% 42%
Effingham 53% 47%
Evans 58% 42%
Fulton 56% 44%
Long 51% 49%
Muscogee 51% 49%
Oconee 53% 47%
Tattnall 55% 45%
The state DOT cites national precedents in passing similar referendums. It notes that 54 of 76
transportation ballot measures have been approved by voters (a 71% approval rate), and that 45 of 62
(73%) measures involving a tax or fee were approved. However, it does not say a) how recently these
referendums were held, or b) how many of these were in the south.
The AJC cites a 2008 poll that asks a random sample of Georgians if they support regional efforts to
relieve traffic congestion, including the sharing of resources with districts outside the respondents’’
home district. An enormous 85% agreed with such a plan, in principle. However, in this same survey,
when presented with any specific set of plans, approval dropped dramatically. When specifically polled
about the possibility of this very penny sales tax plan that has been passed, the remaining support for
this transportation plan dropped to 49%, which brings the polling roughly in line with the defeat of the
$10 car tag levy and, anecdotally, with the 2008 Presidential race.
2010 Presidential Party performance as predictor of popular support
Although there are no strong partisan positions in support or opposition among elected officials, I doubt
that this will remain true among the Georgia electorate. I expect that moderate and progressive voters

4. will line up in support of the tax, and hard line Republicans will be strongly opposed even to the
submission of a proposed tax plan to voters. In addition, this last group has a very active presence on
election days. I have compiled the data below as a possible proxy for voting behavior on the T-SPLOST.
Rep Dem # Active Voters
Atlanta Regional Commission 42% 58% 1,752,539
Coastal 53% 47% 248,740
Central Savannah River Area 49% 51% 191,150
Georgia Mountains 77% 23% 238,180
Heart of Georgia Altamaha 67% 33% 107,217
Middle Georgia 53% 47% 200,737
Northeast Georgia 61% 39% 234,364
Northwest Georgia 72% 28% 302,644
River Valley 46% 54% 140,019
Southern Georgia 64% 36% 140,909
Southwest Georgia 53% 47% 139,691
Three Rivers 66% 34% 196,692
53% 47% 3,892,882
Summary
The reaction to a new tax in Georgia, no matter how needed, is predictable. However, the example of
Cobb approving the car tax levy gives hope to the possibility of a successful T-SPLOST campaign
promoting if the emphasis is placed on the concrete, tangible benefits to a community when the
transportation infrastructure is improved. The larger chambers of commerce in the state have started
mobilizing to support the initiative, and without organized opposition, any failure to pass the
referendum will come from the combination of the economic timing of the proposal and the historical
low-tax, conservative position of Georgia voters.