Henry County Schools is asking parents and community members for their input on the upcoming Education SPLOST 7 project list. The community will consider E-SPLOST 7 at the ballot box in spring 2026.
What is Education SPLOST?
Education SPLOST is a one-cent local sales tax that Georgia school districts may utilize to pay for capital projects. Presently, all but one county in Georgia has an E-SPLOST program in place. School districts have to ask their county’s voters every five years to renew the program. The school district must spend education SPLOST revenue on capital purchases. The school district cannot spend the collections on staff salaries nor operating costs.
Henry County voters have approved six E-SPLOST referendums since 1996. The current program, E-SPLOST 6, was approved by voters in spring 2021.
Education SPLOST 7 Survey
Henry County Schools is gathering community feedback now through the Education SPLOST 7 Survey. The survey asks respondents to provide their feedback on various types of projects. Respondents can rank the items 1-5 by their importance. The following possible projects are on the survey:
- Safety and Security Enhancements
- Weapons Detection Systems
- Security Camera Integrations
- Student Identification System
- Construction
- New Facilities
- Renovation of Current Facilities
- Technology Enhancements
- Update or replenish student devices
- Update or replenish staff devices
- Operational and network security platforms
- Instructional technology tools
- Operational Enhancements
- School Buses
- Upgrades to operating systems (i.e. HVAC and lighting)
- Athletic equipment
- Furniture replacement
- Instructional Enhancements
- Classroom instructional materials
- Fine arts equipment (instruments, etc.)
- STEM equipment/materials
Education SPLOST 6 Projects
The E-SPLOST 6 program has a $325 million budget. About half of this is designated for new classroom space. Altogether, E-SPLOST 6 has nine new classroom projects. Those include three new schools and six classroom additions. Here’s the current status for each project:
Other building projects were a new admin office building and bus maintenance garage. The admin office replaces several trailers and houses the district had been using. The new bus garage more than doubles the district’s maintenance space to service vehicles. Both of those projects will be complete by summer 2025 ahead of the new school year starting in August. In addition, E-SPLOST 6 had the purchase of 125 new school buses. So far, the program has bought over 100 new buses. One more purchase will be in November 2025.
E-SPLOST 6 paid for the security access control system across the district. It is also paying for roof replacements and HVAC upgrades at various schools. Lastly, the program covered IT and technology expenses. This included replacing and updating the students’ & teachers’ laptops.
Editor’s note: previous articles have referred to Education SPLOST programs using roman numerals i.e. E-SPLOST VI. To reduce the chance of confusion with the county’s regular SPLOST programs, future articles will refer to E-SPLOST using plain numbers i.e. E-SPLOST 7.
Featured image shows Birch Creek Elementary School in McDonough. PBK photo.
