As Effingham County commissioners ponder the to-do list for a possible next round of special purpose local option sales tax, a few priorities are taking shape.

Chief among the items to be accomplished is a new jail and sheriff’s administrative complex, something commissioners hope the municipalities also will support.

“We’ve got to do that,” Commissioner Verna Phillips said.

On its list of potential building projects to fund with another SPLOST round, the county pegs the cost of a new jail and sheriff’s office at $11.2 million. County Administrator David Crawley said a new jail could be a level 1 project, meaning it would have an impact across the county.

“We need to construct a facility that you can easily add on to,” he said. “The facility there needs to come down.”

County project manager Adam Kobek said it’s likely a new jail would be double the size of the existing jail.

“It depends on how big we want to go,” he said. “Jail space is considerably more expensive than building administrative space.”

The current jail is at capacity, and the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office routinely has prisoners housed in other area jails. The jail has 180 beds and averages housing around 30 prisoners in other jails.

A bigger jail may mean revenue for the county, since the federal government pays up to $50 a day per inmate for housing prisoners.

County commissioners faced the potential loss of several million dollars of sales tax before an exemption on natural gas was removed from legislation in the recently-completed General Assembly session. State lawmakers and staff from the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia pressed to have the exemption removed.

“If we weren’t able to get the sales tax on natural gas,” Crawley said, “it would have a significant impact on our LOST and SPLOST.”

Other possible county buildings items include four fire stations at just over $2 million and a new administrative complex at approximately $6.7 million.

Also up for consideration are several recreation projects, including a gym at the Sand Hill complex, an aquatics center, a park promenade in downtown Springfield, new recreation offices, a marina on Savannah River and improvements to the complexes on Highway 119 and Pineora.

The total price tag for the recreation wish list is projected to be $15.6 million. Commissioners also pointed to the success of the Statesboro-Bulloch County Recreation Department’s Mill Creek Park.

“They get a lot of customers from out of our county,” said Chairman Dusty Zeigler.

Drainage studies and improvements could run about $1.7 million, as estimated.

“We have completed drainage studies to help with some of the drainage issues we have throughout the county,” Crawley said. “We have included some money in the next round to do some hydrologic studies as well as additional topographic studies to do drainage improvements.”

The county is eying several road projects with the total price tag coming in at more than $161 million. However, the county would not be responsible for the full cost of the work.

“Portions of these projects are going to be paid for by the federal or state government,” Crawley said.

For instance, Effingham Parkway is pegged to cost $120 million, though the county is expected to provide about $32 million of the cost, mostly for right-of-way acquisition. Improvements at the I-16/Old River Road interchange are expected to cost $16.4 million, Crawley said he hoped the county would be tapped for only about $2.5 million.

Improvements along Goshen Road and Blue Jay Road are projected at $4.6 million total, and the east-west corridor from Fort Howard Road through the Research Forest Tract to Hodgeville Road is projected to cost $15.6 million.

“It’s difficult for us to determine how much funding we’ll have to allocate,” Crawley said, adding the county’s tab for Effingham Parkway could be as high as $32 million.

The county also is looking at buying one new ambulance and one new fire truck per year and installing a community well for Meldrim. The total cost of the wish list is more than $203 million, though that includes major portions of road work the county likely won’t have to fund.

“It’s a big number,” Kobek said. “But some of it could be affected by other sources.”

The current SPLOST runs through 2012 and is capped at $50 million. The county is capped at receiving a little more than $40 million, though the economic downturn has reduced sales tax receipts.

“We probably won’t reach that,” Crawley said.

County commissioners are expected to have a workshop with the cities May 18 to discuss future SPLOST projects.