Your front page story on the TSPLOST sales tax at issue on the May 21st ballot (“Paving the Way” Tifton Gazette, May 9, 2024) said nothing about how much the tax would cost regular citizens. A headline more relevant to us would have been: “TSPLOST To Cost Avg. Tiftonite $1500”

The calculations are simple. The tax’s Valdosta-based supporters sent each of us a flier in the mail. The flier said “the proposed 10-year [!] TSPLOST is forecasted to bring in $820 million in revenue.” Divide that revenue by the population of the 18 counties in the region, estimated at 421,596 by the Census Bureau last July, and the result is $1945. At best, 18% of that revenue may come from customers outside the 18-county region. We are therefore left to pay $1595 for every man, woman, and child in the region.

Your article not only buried the lede but omitted it altogether.

Chris Burchell

Unincorporated Tift County, Ga.