Augusta Commission members are back to refining a list of projects for SPLOST 9, the city’s next Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax Referendum, which voters are set to decide May 19 after the commission postponed the Nov. 4 vote.
One of eight-and-a-half pennies now collected on each dollar of sales in Augusta-Richmond County, the tax has funded billions in capital projects since local voters gave the first OK in 1987.
The tax is one reason Augusta’s total budget exceeds $1.3 billion. Some $318 million of that amount in Administrator Tameka Allen’s 2026 budget is for designated capital projects funded largely by sales taxes.
Skepticism about the government’s legitimate use of the funds has fueled its defeat at the Augusta polls twice, in 2004 and 2014. Opposition campaigns were developing when the commission voted in August to postpone a planned Nov. 4 referendum to the May 19 ballot.
In Allen’s revised project list, which the city Finance Committee is set to discuss Tuesday, public safety, infrastructure and facilities make up much of a proposed $434 million in capital spending.
The Richmond County Sheriff’s Office would receive the largest share, $80 million including $65 million to expand the Charles B. Webster Detention Center and $15 million for new patrol vehicles.
In addition, the list includes $21.8 million for Augusta Fire Department with $7 million going toward a new or replacement station and $14.8 million for fire engines. Another $4 million is designated for unspecified public safety vehicles.
Under “quality of life” and “general government” are nearly $170 million in projects which include the following identified new or upgraded facilities:
- $22 million for the Riverwalk and Boathouse reconstruction
- $7 million for aquatics facilities improvements
- $5 million for Diamond Lakes Regional Park
- $3 million for the Fifth Street Marina
- $20 million for a juvenile court facility
- $10 million for a fleet maintenance facility
- $3 million for the New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam
- $10 million for a new park and community center
- $3 million for cemeteries
- $18 million for Augusta Convention Center
- $2 million for an Augusta Animal Services shelter
- $500,000 each for the Augusta Museum of History and Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History
Since discussions in August, the revised list added $5 million to the juvenile court project and $14 million for the Boathouse plus $2.5 million in additional bond interest to bond the Boathouse project up front.
The package includes $8 million for program administration and a combined $17.5 million in interest on the bonds. It includes allocations of $3.76 million for Blythe and $12.5 million for Hephzibah, based on the cities’ populations. It has $5 million in promised funding for the new Augusta University research building.
The package includes numerous allocations of infrastructure funding for unspecified uses, such as “on-call construction.” Among its more identified infrastructure funding, the list includes:
- $25 million for the Augusta Economic Development Authority south Augusta industrial sewer expansion
- $10 million for south Augusta sewer connections
- $20 million for road resurfacing
- $22 million for stormwater improvements
- $5 million for East Augusta drainage
- $2.5 million for Walton Way
- $4 million for Willis Foreman Road
- $6 million for Transportation Investment Act utility relocations
