Sales taxes pass in Chatham, Camden, Liberty but not Bryan

This story was updated on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, to add average voter turnout for all four Coastal Georgia counties that held special elections.

As a way to fund infrastructure improvements in their counties, Coastal Georgia voters in recent years have repeatedly demonstrated a preference for sales taxes over raising property taxes or borrowing money and incurring debt.

On Tuesday, they did so again.

In a special election notable for remarkably low turnout, voters in Camden, Chatham and Liberty approved the continuation of a one-cent sales tax on retail purchases for another five years. Only fast-growing Bryan County, where capital outlay needs are especially pressing, proved an exception.

In Chatham, Liberty and Bryan, the question on the ballot was whether to extend a one-cent sales tax to generate funds specifically for building and renovating public-school infrastructure — an Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, or ESPLOST.

Liberty County voters approved the measure by 980 votes, winning 73% of the 2,128 votes cast, according to unofficial results. Turnout was low, with only 2,128 voters casting ballots — 4.4% of the county’s 48,268 registered voters.

ESPLOST prevailed decisively in Chatham, too, according to unofficial figures, winning with 64.37% of the vote to opponents’ 35.63% — or 7,879 votes to 4,361. Turnout in Coastal Georgia’s most populous county was also very light, with only 5.81% of the county’s 211,005 registered voters casting ballots.

In Camden County, voters approved a continuation of the one-cent sales tax to fund a broad range of non-public school related infrastructure improvements, including construction of a jail, park rehabilitation, and the purchase of seven ambulances.

The so-called Special Purpose Option Sales Tax, or SPLOST, was passed by voters in Coastal Georgia’s southernmost county with 60.8% of the 2,667 votes cast — or 1,624 to 1,024. Only 6.9% of the county’s registered voters cast ballots.

Since voters approved a one-cent sales tax to finance infrastructure improvements for public school systems in 1996, the funding mechanism has proved very popular, so much so that by the end of the last decade, the ESPLOST had become, in effect, a permanent statewide one-cent sales tax.

Bryan County voters, in particular, have approved an education-related sales tax six times since it first went on the ballot in 1997.

In a stunning turnabout, however, this time they said “no.” The school funding measure was defeated by 35 votes, 1,894 to 1,859. Voter turnout was only 11% of the county’s 33,997 registered voters.

Taken together, approval for continuing the one-cent sales tax in Camden, Chatham, and Liberty prevailed by an average of 32% of the vote, while turnout in all four Coastal Georgia counties that held special elections on Tuesday averaged 7% of all registered voters.

ESPLOST PROJECTS IN CHATHAM