Chattooga County has not been seeing as much sales tax revenue in 2015.  In fact, the county is off about $140,000 in sales tax collections compared to 2015.  Chattooga County Sole Commissioner Jason Winters told The Summerville News that is due to changes in state tax policy. 

First, the commissioner cited the manufacturing exemption of sales tax on electricity.  That exemption was first implemented in 2013 and has been phased in slowly with the full exemption coming in 2016.  The second change came when Georgia changed the way taxes were collected on fuel.  The 7.5 percent excise tax and 4 percent sales tax was replaced with a 26 cent excise tax on gas and diesel fuel. 

Winters told the local paper that he is counting on the State Department of Transportation to make up some of the shortfall in revenue to the county by increasing local paving projects.  Each year the DOT paves about $400,000-$450,000 worth of county roadways. Winters said the DOT is increasing local paving dollars by 30-40 percent.