The Effingham County Board of Education is putting together its parameters for a planned renewal vote of the special purpose local option sales tax.

Superintendent Randy Shearouse said the school system would have to call for the election, which likely will be held in conjunction with the three municipal elections on the ballot. There are no other countywide votes slated to be conducted this election cycle.

In order to fund more immediate building projects, the school system may ask for either a $10 million or a $15 million bond, to be paid back through SPLOST proceeds.

“Right now, we’re saving about $250,000 a month on buildings,” Shearouse said. “We know we have that money earmarked for buildings.”

Sheaourse said the system could get a premium bond sale that would bring in more than $15 million, “which would be great for the school system. A lot of districts are selling premium bonds, and interest rates right now are really good. It looks like they will stay low.”

The system could project to take in $60 million with a renewed SPLOST, which would be $1 million in sales tax collections a month.

“If we were blessed enough to receive $60 million, we would be in really good shape with the projects we are looking at,” Shearouse said. “We’re not close to that with the current SPLOST.”

The current SPLOST took in as much as $822,000 for January 2014 and $790,000 for August 2014. Receipts for the past two months of collections were $568,322 for May and $544,701 for June. The existing SPLOST has two more years, set to expire in June 2017. The proposed vote would extend SPLOST another five years.

The current E-SPLOST was estimated to generate from $6 million-$8 million a year and was passed in 2010 with 58.2 percent of voters backing it.he bond attorney and our own attorney.