The White County Commission split over how to allocate potential revenue from a proposed sales tax increase, with the referendum fast approaching.
County Commission Chairman Derrick Hutchings introduced the resolution by noting the commission needed to establish a plan for the funds. A property tax decrease is one idea. Hutchings said the county estimates the tax could generate approximately $1 million, though the exact figure remains a moving target.
“So there’s, it would, in my opinion, be irresponsible for us to say, we’re going to give every bit of it back, because we don’t know what every bit of it will be,” Hutchings said. “That’ll, that mean, that fluctuates every year. Uh, we still have other items that we need to fund. I mean, we, several people have been, several commissioners have been to the, the budget meetings. We have a lot of asks from the budget committee. Over two million dollars. Over two million dollars that we don’t know how we’re going to fund.”
Commissioner Becky Golden proposed an amendment to dedicate all additional revenue from the sales tax toward property tax relief. Golden said the commission often appears “wishy-washy” to the public by changing its stance on financial decisions.
Hutchings said he opposed dedicating the entire amount to property tax because the revenue will fluctuate annually, making it difficult to manage the county budget. He said the school system is legally entitled to half of all sales tax collected, and the county currently uses 30 cents of property tax to supplement the schools.
“If we pass for all one million dollars to go to property tax relief, we would have to pull it back or we would have a $500,000 deficit that we would have to overcome somewhere else,” Hutchings said. “Correct.”
The commission defeated Golden’s amendment in a 3-6 vote. Following that failure, Commissioner Dakota White proposed a different allocation strategy intended to appeal to voters, sending money to roads, the animal shelter and property tax relief.
White’s amendment failed in a 4-5 vote. Following the rejection of both amendments, the commission returned to the original motion for the sales tax usage resolution.