More jobs, safer roads and local control.
That’s what advocates of the transportation special purpose local option sales tax claim the passage of the proposed penny tax will create.
That’s also what Mike Sisco, co-chair of the Bryan County TSPLOST committee, told members of the North Bryan Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday at the J. Dixie Harn Community Center in Pembroke during the organization’s monthly meeting.
“This is a great opportunity for Georgians to put a penny to work,” Sisco said. “It is a new tax that we’ve not had before, but it is a great opportunity for us to invest in Georgia and Georgia’s infrastructure.”
Sisco explained to the crowd of about 40 the tax would mean nine major transportation and infrastructure improvements for Bryan County if passed by voters in the July 31 primary. Throughout the region, 75 total projects would be funded by the tax, he added.
“Every penny raised in this region stays in this region, it doesn’t matter what Atlanta wants to do,” he said. “The projects were slated and looked at by your local officials and by local people and all the money that is raised in this zone stays in this zone.”
Seventy-five percent of the funds raised would go towards the regional projects, Sisco said. The remaining 25 percent will be returned to local county and city governments to use for local transportation projects.
Sisco also addressed the question of how funds will be divvied up throughout the region. Each county will receive a portion of the $1.6 billion the tax is expected to raise through a one-fifth population, four-fifths road-mile ratio.
“In Bryan County, we’re getting a fair amount that will be coming to us,” Sisco said. “Chatham County may get and probably will get a lot more than what Bryan County does because they’ve got a lot more population and road miles."

Read more in the July 14 edition of the News.