County votes to renew E-SPLOST

Houston County voters hit the polls in droves Tuesday – and in the early period – to overwhelmingly approve the Education-Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for another five-year period, 73.92 percent of the more than 27,000 votes cast saying yes.

The E-SPLOST, as it was listed on the ballot, is slated to raise $135,000,000 for numerous Board of Education projects and be in effect only for a period of 20 calendar quarters, which is five years. There were 6,380 votes cast early – or absentee in person – 395 absentee ballots by mail and 20,340 on Election Day Tuesday. Of those votes, 20,043 were in favor of extending the current E-SPLOST and 7,072 were against.

The results from Tuesday are unofficial and incomplete because there were still provisional ballots to be counted, according to Joanne Shipes, Election Supervisor for the Houston County Board of Elections. She said the voting results would be officially certified on Friday.

“I want to say thank you to the community for trusting us with the dollars that make Houston County a better place to live and work and raise your children,” said Superintendent Mark Scott, saying this cycle voted on will not begin until April of 2017. This votes means a renewal of the current E-SPLOST already approved by voters and will end in March 2017.

There was one more vote on Tuesday, the Presidential Preference Primary, and Houston picked both state-wide winners. In a crowded Republican field, Donald Trump took 37 percent of Houston’s vote (7,091) with Sen. Ted Cruz second with 26.79 percent (5,133) and Sen. Marco Rubio third at 21.56 percent (4,130). Hillary Clinton took almost 76 percent of the county’s Democratic vote (6,274) to the 23 percent for Sen. Bernie Sanders (1,946).

HHJ News