Q: If the sales tax package passes, do taxes get raised?

A: No.

The city has been collecting a 1-cent special purpose local option sales tax since 1988 after voters approved the first phase in August 1987.

The city is currently collecting the tax through SPLOST V -- a $160 million package of projects. The tax is the seventh penny of local sales taxes -- four are for the state, one is for Richmond County schools' special purpose tax and another is the local option sales tax (levied by the state and returned to counties to keep property taxes down).

If SPLOST VI passes Tuesday, the city will collect that seventh penny without a break. SPLOST V will go on until the end of the fiscal quarter after collections hit $160 million, which is projected to happen on Sept. 30, 2010.

If a tax referendum has passed by then, the next round of collections will pick up Oct. 1, 2010, and continue until $184.7 million is reached, projected to occur around September 2015.

Q: Does the tax have any impact on property taxes?

A: Yes. Assuming the projects on the list have to be done, the penny tax keeps property taxes down.

Under Georgia law, the tax can be levied to fund construction and improvements to roads, bridges, drainage systems, public buildings and debt service. (The package before voters includes $10 million to recover the money given to Medical College of Georgia to buy Gilbert Manor housing project.) It can also be used for cultural facilities, allowing such things as Miller Theatre renovations and Paine College's planned Health Education Activities Learning Complex to be funded.

Without the tax, most of the projects, particularly those infrastructure-related, would still have to be paid for, likely through property taxes. SPLOST negates that and allows projects to be undertaken faster.

Once a referendum passes, the city usually issues bonds, with collections as collateral, to get started on the most urgent projects. City Administrator Fred Russell has said that after SPLOST VI passes, he wants to issue a $52.5 million general obligation bond to pay off the Gilbert Manor debt and get started on airport projects, the sheriff's administration building, the new jail pods and Municipal Building improvements.

Here's another way to put the SPLOST/property taxes relationship in perspective: The city collects about $50 million a year in property taxes and about $37 million a year from SPLOST. Though state law won't allow it, theoretically if the sales tax were raised about a penny and a half more, it would do away with the need for property taxes. And were it raised about 2.25 cents more, it could do away with school taxes, which total about $80 million per year.

Q: What will happen if voters don't pass the tax package?

A: City Administrator Fred Russell and Augusta commissioners will have to try again, and under state law they have to wait a year to put another referendum before voters. The next opportunity would be July 20, 2010, the date of statewide primaries.

Q: How much is being spent to hold this referendum, and how much will it cost taxpayers to hold another one if the tax package fails this time?

A: The single-issue referendum Tuesday is costing the city $83,290. Commissioner Joe Bowles had argued that this money could be saved by adding it to the ballot in November, when elections are taking place anyway. However, Mr. Russell successfully argued that if the tax failed in November of this year, another referendum would have to wait until November 2010, leading to a lapse in collections that would cost millions. (That happened after a $486 million package failed in 2004 -- the city's first attempt to pass SPLOST V -- leading to three months without collections in 2005 that cost the city $9 million.)

If the package fails and another referendum goes to voters in July 2010, it won't cost the city anything extra. Primaries on that date are expected to cost $90,000 to $95,000, but that money will be spent regardless of a tax vote.

Q: What happens if the tax fails two years in a row and is allowed to expire?

A: In that scenario, on Oct. 1, 2010, the city's sales tax would roll back to 6 cents and would stay that way until the city came up with a tax package voters like. So while passing SPLOST VI won't raise sales taxes, rejecting it two years in a row could lower them.

Q: Why is the tax considered a fair tax by proponents?

A: To supporters, such as the downtown advocates conducting a "yes to SPLOST" campaign, it greatly improves the community's quality of life, funding parks, road projects and theaters without raising property taxes. It's been used in the past to fund such amenities as the Augusta Aquatics Center, the Augusta Common and the new main library. Such projects can get done faster than they would if the city had to wait years to put the money together through taxes, not to mention that the city has a tax cap and can only collect so much.

Plus, as in the Fair Tax concept, it's a tax based on spending, and an estimated 40 percent of the money comes from visitors rather than residents.

Q: Why is the tax considered unfair by opponents?

A: To anti-SPLOST factions such as the Libertarian Party of the CSRA, it is just one more unnecessary tax. Were the government to vastly reduce spending, they say, there would be no need for an extra sales tax penny, and property taxes could be reduced. Local Libertarian Party member Rocky Eades contends that the tax packages are merely grab bags of pork projects, among them the Golf and Gardens mega-flop, which needed far more than the $6 million it received in SPLOST dollars to stay afloat. Mr. Eades also said it's unfair to tax one set of people -- be they residents or visitors -- for parks, buildings or roads they might not use.

SPLOST VI has also been criticized for not doing enough to address the city's pothole-laden roads. The first draft of it had $235.5 million for engineering (roadwork, drainage improvements and such) and $30.7 million for traffic engineering. The final list has just $35.7 million for engineering and $8.6 million for traffic engineering. The plan to spend $3.5 million creating a lake near Regency Mall, an effort to spur revitalization, has also been criticized.

Q: How does the TEE center factor into this tax package?

A: As far as dollars and cents, it doesn't factor at all, because the downtown trade, exhibit and event center isn't on the list of projects. But it factors in greatly in terms of perception. The argument could be made that the center's stalled status shows Augusta's government might not be capable of delivering what voters approve, and that the money voters approve for projects aren't always enough to get them done, putting taxpayers on the hook to spend even more.

The TEE center was approved for $20 million by voters as part of SPLOST V. It's since become a political football among Augusta commissioners. It took the board nearly two years to approve a site on Reynolds Street and an operating agreement with Augusta Riverfront LLC. Since then, the estimated cost of the TEE center has swelled to $38 million, as an architect complained that building it for $20 million would be impossible. Mr. Russell put a plan together to fund construction through bonds and various nonproperty tax revenue streams, but the commission is deadlocked along racial lines on whether to approve it. Mr. Russell has been given approval to take some steps toward building the TEE center -- such as having schematic designs drafted -- but white commissioners remain skeptical that he'll get the go-ahead to raise the needed funding.

The controversy has led Mr. Bowles to speak out against the new tax package, saying the TEE center problems demonstrate government ineffectiveness and that taxpayers should be spared that seventh penny on purchases.

Q: What is the connection between the referendum and Laney-Walker/Bethlehem revitalization efforts?

A: Again, nothing on paper, but much in perception.

The tax package includes no allocations for inner-city revitalization. However, in an effort to garner a sixth vote to approve the TEE center's site and operating agreement in 2007, Commissioner Don Grantham made a deal with Commissioner Betty Beard to fund redevelopment of blighted neighborhoods using a $1-a-night hotel fee. Projected to collect $1.1 million per year, the first $350,000 of annual bed fee collections would go toward TEE center operations, the next $750,000 toward the inner city and the rest to Augusta Public Transit.

Add up $38 million to build the TEE center, $17 million for a parking deck, $37.5 million in hotel fees to the TEE center over 50 years, plus $17.5 million in TEE center operation fees over 50 years (which would actually be less as the center became self-sustaining), and the total comes to $110 million -- all stemming from something voters approved for $20 million.

Q: How does the proposed downtown baseball stadium factor into the tax package?

A: Not a bit, other than that Mayor Deke Copenhaver wants to build it on the Golf and Gardens property, and the gardens ate up $6 million in SPLOST money. There's nothing in SPLOST VI related to the stadium concept.

Voters will weigh in Tuesday on whether to extend Augusta's 1-cent special purpose sales tax. Here's an overview of the projects the tax's continuation would fund.

Sunday and Monday, check back for more information about projects, answers to 10 pressing questions and a look at how previous SPLOST money has been spent.

Note: Numbers might not add up exactly because of rounding