Savannah-area voters pass 1% sales tax referendum to fund Chatham County public school improvements

Credit: Benjamin Payne / GPB News

Voters in Savannah's Chatham County overwhelmingly passed a referendum Tuesday to renew a supplemental 1% sales tax through 2030 to fund capital improvement plans at the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System (SCCPSS), Georgia's largest public school district outside of metro Atlanta.

64% of voters approved the county's fifth iteration of its Educational Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST), which SCCPSS estimates will generate roughly $705 million in revenue over five years for a host of building projects serving the district's more than 38,000 enrolled students.

Turnout in the election was low, with preliminary results showing only about 5% of Chatham County's roughly 210,000 registered voters participating in the referendum.

Among them was Savannah resident Susanne O'Day, a mother of two children attending SCCPSS schools, who said after casting her ballot that the school district could use "all the help it can get" financially, leading her to vote for the sales tax.

"My middle schooler got into a good middle school, but it's slim pickings," she said, referring to the district's lottery system for higher-performing schools. "You're on pins and needles for months, waiting to see if they're going to get in. I think that there's so few resources, which brings us back to the vote today. The public school system needs more resources to provide better schools for more kids in this county."

O'Day added that she wished more parents in Chatham County would choose to send their children to public schools "so that they would have more of an investment in the system, rather than just pivoting to private school immediately."

Savannah resident Juan Vargas also cast his ballot in support of the ESPLOST extension, as he said Georgia's education system lags far behind those of other states where he has previously lived, including California and Washington.

"Instead of thinking of how we're going to reduce the cost of education, we need to think of how to increase the investment in education," said Vargas, adding that he thinks Georgia is doing "a very poor job" of preparing its students for future success into adulthood.

"Computers should be everywhere in the schools, helping students to learn the new skills for the 21st century," he said. "Unfortunately, in Georgia, that's not happening."

Savannah resident Susannah Gresham, a mother of three children who attend SCCPSS, cited recent cuts to federal education funding under the Trump administration as one reason she cast her ballot in favor of the ESPLOST referendum.

"With the potential collapse of the Department of Education, I think that making sure that we're paying attention to the local elections and how money is being used locally is really important," said Gresham, adding that she liked how the sales tax would not rest squarely on residents' shoulders, but also be imposed on visitors in Savannah's tourism-heavy economy.

Several other Georgia counties beyond Chatham held similar ESPLOST referendums Tuesday for their public school districts, including neighboring Bryan County, where preliminary results showed the measure narrowly failed by a razor-thin margin of less than 1% of the 3,753 total votes cast.