Collections for SPLOST V ended this week and Hall County Purchasing Manager Tim Sims said it’s not likely that the county will collect the money it had hoped for.

The fifth Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, which began in 2004, was slated to bring in $148 million in five years.

To date, the county has brought in $133.2 million, $7.4 million short of what should be collected to reach the target amount, Sims said.

The state makes sales tax payments to the county two months in arrear. The county will receive its final check for SPLOST V, which ended June 30, in August.

"We kind of thought things were on the uptick a little bit. That’s what all the signs with the economy show, but until we get it all in, we just don’t know," Sims said.

The one thing that is certain is that Hall will not meet its $148 million goal.

"We already know we’re going to be a little short on this SPLOST because of the (economic) downturn," Sims said. "Once we find out our exact amount, the commissioners will have to make some choices. We can’t really do away with any projects but we’ll have to scale back some projects."

Hall County Board of Commissioners Chairman Tom Oliver said no decisions have been made about where cuts will be made, though they likely will be spread across remaining projects.

The only projects in SPLOST V that have not been completed are fire station construction, landfill construction and new parks.

"We will adjust accordingly," Oliver said. "I would prefer we do nothing until we get the final numbers."

Though SPLOST V collections will come up short, Oliver said he isn’t too disappointed.

"Everything being considered we did great," he said. "We want to be good stewards of the money."

Despite the lower sales tax revenues, Gainesville City Manager Kip Padgett said the city was able to complete most of the paving projects that were to be funded with SPLOST V.

Sims said early SPLOST VI collections, which started Wednesday, likely will stay consistent with late SPLOST V collections of $1.6 million to $2.1 million monthly.

The new SPLOST was approved by county voters in a March referendum.

As the city enters another round of the 1 percent tax, its first priority is the planned Public Safety Facility.

SPLOST VI will help Gainesville officials pay for a bigger facility for the police and fire departments — a 54,000-square-foot building for police and municipal court and a 26,000-square-foot fire station — without having to raise property taxes.

The city will funnel most of this round’s SPLOST revenues toward the facility and construction on the $20 million facility is already under way.

If sales tax revenues continue to decline, however, city officials may have to scale back some of the other, smaller projects on the list for SPLOST VI.

"We’re going to kind of look at it and see how everything progresses but it will be a significant time before we even implement any of the other projects on there," Gainesville City Manager Kip Padgett said.

But the other projects, like some planned streetscaping and park improvements, will not even be ready for construction until the fifth or sixth year of the tax, Padgett said.

By then, city officials ought to be able to judge what projects will be feasible based on the first four year’s revenue trends, Padgett said.

"Our finance department looks at the collections every month to start estimating trends so we can have a better feel of coming year," Padgett said.