Counting today, registered voters have three more days to cast ballots on whether they want the 1-cent ESPLOST sales tax for education to continue funding Bryan County Schools projects another five years. 

Early voting for the measure ends Friday on both ends of the county, and election day is on Tuesday, Nov. 2. 

Proponents such as the Richmond Hill Bryan County Chamber of Commerce are urging residents to renew the penny tax, which would raise up to $60 million over a 5-year period.

Some of that money would go toward retiring about $16 million in debt already incurred by the school system, which has been constructing new schools at a rapid pace to keep up with residential growth. The U.S. Census Bureau recently said Bryan County is the sixth fastest growing county in the U.S.

Since 2012, BCS has built four new schools – three in a five-mile radius in South Bryan and one in Pembroke, while seeing its enrollment go from about 7,000 to around 10,000.

Voters last approved the ESPLOST in 2017 as part of a referendum that also included issuing up to $100 million in bonds to pay for a new Richmond Hill High School, among other projects, but the new RHHS is on hold due to rising construciton costs and shortages of material.