Chatham County’s city leaders have some math homework.
On Tuesday night, they were presented with a formula that could determine their share of the Local Option Sales Tax for the next 10 years.
All they have to do is plug in the numbers.
The formula was presented by County Commissioner Pat Farrell during the first meeting to figure out how to divvy up the 1 percent sales tax, which must be renegotiated within two years of every decennial census.
Farrell said the equation, which is based on the average amount of property tax and LOST revenue each government has taken in for the past three years, is the fairest way to relieve the property tax burden on residents, as state lawmakers intended when they created the 1 percent sales tax in 1975. Taxpayers with the highest burden would see the most relief.
“Where the numbers shake out, is where they shake out and we’ll have to go from there,” Farrell said.
The city managers and mayors from Savannah, Bloomingdale, Garden City, Pooler, Port Wentworth, Thunderbolt, Tybee Island and Vernonburg had some questions and wanted to review the proposal before agreeing to anything.
Bloomingdale Mayor Wayne Tipton said it appeared that if a city was more frugal and kept property taxes down it would suffer under the formula.
None of the city leaders had prepared proposals of their own for the initial meeting.
Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson said that they were seeing the formula for the first time and it would have to be reviewed. Jackson was more concerned with establishing a schedule of future meetings that could accommodate everyone.
“You’re giving us info, but we’re not even dealing with numbers today,” Jackson said.
State law says a variety of criteria can be used in calculating the distributions, including population, the services each government provides and origin of sale.
The county currently receives 17.80 percent of the tax revenue, which translated to about $10.2 million in 2010. The city of Savannah receives the largest share — about 67 percent or $38.6 million in 2010.
County Commission Chairman Pete Liakakis encouraged the city representatives to develop their own proposals for distributing the funds if they had other ideas, but reminded them that they had to come to a consensus within 60 days or they would have to enter non-binding arbitration. If, after another 60 days, they still cannot come to an agreement, the distributions would have to be determined by a superior court judge.
The next meeting is scheduled for June 26.