The Georgia legislature gave counties the option to implement a one cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, commonly known as SPLOST, starting in 1985. The sales tax program requires voter approval of the 1 percent, or one penny per dollar, collected for specified capital improvement projects.
While the state mandated that municipalities receive a share of county SPLOST revenues in 2005, Gwinnett began sharing its penny sales tax with its cities in 2001. The County uses sales tax to fund transportation, parks and recreation, public safety, library, and court facilities. The cities use SPLOST to pay for many of the same types of projects as well as administrative, water and sewer, and parking facilities. Photos and recent updates of city projects may be viewed in the twice yearly SPLOST update presentations made to the citizens review committee.
In 1997, school boards gained the option to use a similar one cent sales tax program for school construction, called E-SPLOST.
The state of Georgia also collects a sales tax of 4 percent.
Why SPLOST?
By investing more than $2.9 billion in sales tax funds for these improvements, Gwinnett County Government has minimized long-term debt and saved more than $1 billion in financing costs compared to issuing bonds.
Monitoring your money
Citizen committees have reviewed financial audits of SPLOST programs since 2005. These committees have studied and prioritized proposed projects and made recommendations to the Board of Commissioners using the County's long-range planning and master plan documents for guidance.
