Matt Hamilton/Daily Citizen-NewsBusinessman Chris Shiflett talks about the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) proposal on the March 19 ballot during a Tuesday meeting of the Dalton Rotary Club at the Dalton Golf & Country Club.

DALTON, Ga. — Whitfield County businessman Chris Shiflett came to the Dalton Rotary Club on Tuesday not to attack a proposed 1 percent, six-year, $100 million Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) but to suggest an alternative SPLOST.

Shiflett was invited to speak because he is part of a loose-knit group of citizens who are opposed to the proposed SPLOST.

Shiflett noted he usually backs SPLOSTs and was one of the leaders of a group that led a successful effort in 2017 to pass a five-year, $98 million education SPLOST that is funding, among other projects, the replacement of the North Whitfield Middle School and Valley Point Middle School buildings, which were built more than 50 years ago as high schools, with two new schools on the same campuses.

Early voting for the proposed SPLOST, which includes Whitfield County and the cities within it, started Monday. Election Day is March 19. If approved, the SPLOST would begin on July 1. There is currently a four-year SPLOST that expires on June 30 that is on track to collect $64 million. That SPLOST funded a new emergency radio system for first responders, new firetrucks for both the Dalton and Whitfield fire departments, and Haig Mill Lake Park that opened last year, among other projects.

Shiflett said the size of the proposed SPLOST and some of the projects it would fund make him unable to support it. He questioned the need for a new administrative building and a new taxpayer services building.

Shiflett said he is also concerned about the impact the proposed SPLOST would have, given that Whitfield County is relatively poor and has gotten poorer during the last few years.

Shiflett noted that, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the median household income in Whitfield County fell 6.6 percent from 2014 to 2017, the latest year for which data are available. The median household income in Georgia rose 9.9 percent and the median household income in the United States rose 8.5 percent during that time period.

A median household income is the halfway point, so half of households earned above the median household income and half below.

Shiflett also noted that the 2017 median household income in Whitfield County ($40,720) was significantly below that of Georgia ($56,180) and the United States ($60,340).

The proposed SPLOST would pay to demolish county Administrative Buildings 1 and 2 and replace them with, respectively, a new two-story taxpayer services building ($5.7 million) with a drive-through that would house the tax commissioner’s office and tax assessor’s office and a new four-story government services building ($18.2 million) that would house all other county offices other than those related to the judicial system. The buildings would be on the sites of Administrative Buildings 1 and 2.

Administrative Building 2, which was built in the early 1940s, has a number of structural issues. It is at 214 W. King St. in Dalton. The Dalton Fire Department sent the county a three-page letter last year detailing the ways the building fails to meet the fire code, including insufficient emergency lighting, use of extension cords because of insufficient electrical wiring and no central fire alarm system.

County officials said the issues facing Administrative Building 1 — which include lack of handicap accessibility and a need for repairs to the roof — are not as pressing. It is at 301 W. Crawford St. in Dalton.

Shiflett questioned the need for the two new buildings.

“We would be tearing down buildings with a combined 42,000 square feet and replacing them with buildings with 96,000 square feet,” he said.

Whitfield County Board of Commissioners Chairman Lynn Laughter said during Shiflett’s presentation that the new buildings would actually replace 72,000 square feet of office space.

“We are moving the tax assessor and the tax commissioner out of the courthouse,” she said. “That’s 30,000 square feet.”

The public defender’s office, which is currently in a leased building on Waugh Street, would be moved into the courthouse space occupied by the tax assessor’s office, and the victim’s assistance program would be moved out of the district attorney’s office into the space now occupied by the tax commissioner.

Laughter and Commissioner Roger Crossen have said the new buildings would be built to last 50 years or more and would be built with extra space to handle long-term growth.

Shiflett said he believes the proposed SPLOST would not address the key issue of attracting more higher-income people to live in Whitfield County. He said expanding sewer into unincorporated areas of the county to extend current capacity would open up those areas to housing development, allowing builders to create homes that would attract more affluent residents.

“If the SPLOST is defeated, we could bring it back next year with a scaled-down administrative building, some sewer and road maintenance, and I’d be in favor of it,” he said.

Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce President Rob Bradham declined to comment when asked what advantages and disadvantages Shiflett’s proposal has compared to the plan on the March ballot. The chamber is supporting the proposed SPLOST.

After the meeting, Dalton Utilities CEO Tom Bundros said extending sewer throughout the county in an incremental way is doable but expensive, and where the utility has extended sewer into parts of the county to service some schools in the Whitfield County Schools system, people living in homes along those routes have not generally wanted to pay to connect to sewer.

“It can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $2,500,” he said.

Bundros said before sewer is extended outside the city of Dalton the county would need to have a strong land-use plan.

“Without that, what would happen is that all of a sudden it’s going to be economically feasible to put high-density housing across the county,” he said. “My fear is that you would have willy-nilly development that would not be aesthetically pleasing and could destroy some pristine areas of the county.”

Dalton Rotary Club President Greg Dent said the organization has taken no position on the proposed SPLOST and has invited people with differing views on the proposal to make informational presentations. The chamber made a presentation last week.