County, cities reach agreement on distribution of LOST revenues

2013-02-18

By Josh Akeman

The county has reached and agreement with Fayetteville, Peachtree City, Tyrone, and Brooks on the distribution of Local Option Sales tax (LOST) dollars, dismissing the pending arbitration litigation and setting the distribution percentages through December 31, 2022.
In a memo, Fayetteville city manager Joe Morton expressed his appreciation to city and county negotiating team members for resolving the issue "in a reasonable and amicable manner."
Currently, the four cities split LOST funds 50/50 with the county. With the new plan, a 51.5/48.5 percentage split in favor of the cities will be achieved at the end of a six year phase in period that ends in 2018, after which the county share of the fund is fixed at 48.5 percent while the city shares fluctuate somewhat.
Peachtree city gets the largest chunk of the money by far among the four cities. In 2013, Peachtree city will receive 31.7 percent, followed by Fayetteville (12.25 percent), Tyrone (5.5 percent) and Brooks (0.54 percent).
Brooks and Peachtree City will see a slight decrease in those percentages by the end of the six-year phase in period, with Brooks' share reduced to .445 percent and Peachtree City's share reduced to 29.656 percent. Fayetteville and Tyrone will bump up a little, to 15 percent for Fayetteville and 6.4 percent for Tyrone.
By 2022, the end of the agreement, the shares will be: county (48.5 percent), Peachtree City (30.66 percent), Fayetteville (14.23 percent), Tyrone (6.14%), and Brooks (0.467 percent.)