The bad economy continues to pack a punch and it travels far beyond business owners. The Savannah-Chatham school district isn't collecting as much money as they thought they would with ESPLOST, the penny sales tax for building improvements in the district.
Three years ago, they projected $360 million in revenue. Now, officials only expect to see $300 million.
"Luckily we've been able to identify some other revenue streams that make up some of that difference, but we're going to have to reduce scope in some of our projects. We're still going to get done all of our projects that we committed to do with this community, but some of them may not have all the "nice to haves" that we were originally beginning with,” explains Otis Brock, the district’s chief operations officer.
Brock says the priority is the seven new schools to be built. They are a $35 million Beach High School, a $28 million new K-8 school in Godley Station, Oglethorpe Charter Academy, Butler Elementary, Gadsden Elementary and Pulaski Elementary.
The ESPLOST budget was developed in 2005-2006 when district officials were optimistic with the economy. They expected to collect $360 million from 2007-2011.
We're half way through the five year penny sales tax and so far, about $150 million has been generated.
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