Voters in Athens-Clarke County and the Clarke County School District will answer two sales tax questions on Nov. 3: a new 1% tax whose proceeds would only cut property taxes, and the renewal of the 1% school sales tax. Advance voting runs through Oct. 30, with four to six locations a day in the last two weeks, according to the county’s elections page [1]. Voters can see their own ballot on the Georgia Secretary of State’s My Voter Page, which the county’s sample ballot points to.
The property tax relief tax. The question is a Floating Local Option Sales Tax, or FLOST. It asks: “Shall a special one percent (1%) sales and use tax be imposed for five years within the special district of Athens-Clarke County with the proceeds used exclusively to reduce property taxes imposed by the Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, the City of Winterville, and the Town of Bogart?”
The Mayor and Commission approved a resolution calling the vote on June 9, by a 6-4 roll call recorded in the meeting’s minutes. Commissioners Patrick Davenport, Melissa Link, Tiffany Taylor, Allison Wright, John Culpepper and Mike Hamby voted yes. Commissioners Dexter Fisher, Stephanie Johnson, Carol Myers and Ovita Thornton voted no. The resolution says the tax is expected to begin Jan. 1, 2027, and end Dec. 31, 2031, without a renewal. The county says that a yes vote would raise the local sales tax from 8% to 9%, and that anyone who shops, stays or dines in the county would pay it, including on online purchases from outside Georgia delivered there. It says a resident would spend $10 more for every $1,000 spent on taxable goods in the county.
The county says that, based on its 2026 tax digest, $37.6 million in collections would cut the county government’s property tax rate from 12.25 to 7.83 [3]. It says that on a $250,000 home the cut would be $160 to $220 in the first year, which would cover six months of collections, and $320 to $440 in later years, depending on exemptions. The county also says the reduction applies to all taxable property, including rentals and commercial property, and that the amount would rise or fall with actual collections [2]. If voters say no, the county says, the sales tax stays at 8%.
The school sales tax. The ballot calls it “Renewal of 1% Educational Sales Tax.” Voters in the Clarke County School District will see: “Shall a one percent sales and use tax for educational purposes be imposed, levied and collected in the Clarke County School District (the ‘School District’) for a period of time not to exceed twenty consecutive calendar quarters (5 years), beginning immediately upon the expiration of the one percent sales and use tax for educational purposes currently being collected, and for the raising of not more than $215,000,000” for the capital projects the ballot lists.
The ballot’s list includes additions and renovations at named schools including Timothy Road Elementary and Clarke Central High, the West Broad School Complex, technology, security upgrades, school buses and sewer upgrades to convert from septic systems to public sewer. A yes vote would also approve up to $75,000,000 in school district general obligation debt. The county’s notice of the election says the Board of Education adopted a resolution on June 11 and the elections board issued the call, and that the $215,000,000 maximum includes interest and issuance costs on that debt.
What groups have said. GApolitics ran web searches on Oct. 15 for published positions on both questions and found no published position from any of the groups listed below. The list of places for the property tax relief tax was the Athens-Clarke County Democratic Committee, the Clarke County Republican Party, the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, the Georgia AFL-CIO, the Georgia and Clarke County Farm Bureaus and housing, renter or taxpayer groups. For the school tax, the list was the Democratic Committee, the Republican Party, the chamber, the AFL-CIO and Clarke teacher groups, and PTA or school foundation groups. The list also names any campaign committee on each question, and none was located.