BIG HURDLE CLEARED FOR SALES TAX
Thursday, June 19th, 2008 -- 11:10 AM
The Clark County Board of Supervisors seem poised to implement a half-percent sales tax.At their meeting Wednesday night, the supervisors voted 18-10 in favor of implementing the tax, which would raise an estimated $1.6-million next year.
Clark is one of only 12 counties that don't have the optional tax.
But, through advisory referendum in 2002 and 2005, residents overwhelmingly opposed its implementation.
Familiar arguments for and against the tax were again made last night.
Dan Coughlin, a Willard resident, spoke against the tax.
"I would like to know what economic guru instructs you when the economy is going down the toilet, the best thing you can do is raise taxes," Coughlin questioned, "The old think about the straw that broke the camel's back, this could be it."
Highway Commissioner Randy Anderson urged the board to pass the tax and send some money to his department. He said county roads were already suffering from decreased funding and increasing operational costs?
"In the past eight years, I've seen costs sky-rocket, only to see levy funding for highways go down," Anderson said.
He said they used to pave 20 miles of highway per year, this year they can only afford nine.
"We went from a 15-year paving cycle in the past two years to a 30-year cycle this year. If we don't start adequately funding highway operations, it will cost us a lot more in the future," Anderson warned.
However, unless serious cuts are made, it appears most of the additional revenue will go to fix a deficit caused by the depletion of fund balances in previous budgets and a state-imposed levy freeze.
Granton-area supervisor Fritz Garbisch voted against the tax. He said its only supporters appeared to be county employees.
Finance Committee Chair Charles Harwick of the Hatfield area said the tax was "necessary," and was a relatively painless way to raise funds from non-property owners and tourists.
"If every citizen that's here would sit down and figured out how much money you actually spent in this county that you'd pay a county sales tax on and how much you'd pay, it would be very little," Harwick explained, "The poor people that don't spend much money on things that aren't taxable are not going to spend much (additional) money."
Under board rules, the ordinance must receive its 2nd and 3rd readings at a meeting in July. If approved next month, the tax will go into effect on January 1, 2009.
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