Media Story

Board backs keeping  county sales tax

By DAVE RANK - Daily News Staff
September 14, 2005

Support for continuing the county's half-cent sales tax was strong Tuesday, as the County Board voted 21-6 for a nonbinding resolution advocating just that.

The board also voiced support for a county program that will buy development rights of agricultural land in order to preserve it when it passed by a 16-11 vote an amendment asking that a portion of the sales tax be used for the purchase of development rights (PDR).

"We need to include some county dollars for PRDs," said Mary Krumbiegel, the County Board supervisor from the town of Jackson who proposed the amendment. "Hopefully, this effort will save a portion of our agricultural land and its scenic beauty."

Like the rest of the resolution, Krumbiegel's amendment is advisory only.

The amendment reads: "(T)hat county financial planning also be based on allocating an amount of funds greater than or equal to 10% of sales tax proceeds for park and open space protection, acquisition and development or farmland preservation purposes for the years 2007 and 2008, and greater than or equal to 30% of sales tax proceeds for these purposes in 2009 and thereafter."

"This is a big step, a big chunk of money," said County Board Chairman Kenneth Miller of the amendment. "But we have to make it affordable."

Addressing the board before the vote, Del Ellefson from the town of Wayne asked the board to rescind the half-cent sales tax.

"I really feel we should abolish that and start a movement to reduce taxes," he said.

The county should eliminate the sales tax, which raised $8.3 million in 2004, "and bite the bullet" by cutting $8 million out of its budget.

Wisconsin "is the worst state in the union for retirement," he said. "We need to get a hold of spending in this county."

The purpose of the resolution is to gauge support on the board to continue the tax and to confirm that a final vote to continue will be take early next year, Miller has said.

The resolution also carries a recommendation "that 70% of the sales tax proceeds be allocated to capital projects in 2007 and 2008 with 30% to offset property taxes for the operating budget, and 50% allocated to capital projects and 50% to offset property taxes in the operating budget in 2009 and thereafter(.)"

Created by ordinance in 1998, the sales tax took effect in 1999 and has raised more than $42.3 million through 2004. Last year, sales tax revenue totaled $48.3 million. For the first half of this year, the county has collected more than $4 million.

Facing a string of major construction projects then on the horizon, such as the expansion of the University of Wisconsin Washington County, new Highway Department facilities, the jail expansion and courthouse addition and remodeling, the local sales tax was created to fund those capital improvement projects and others while helping reduce fiscal demands on the county's property tax. The County Board has until July 2006 to decide if it wants that tax to continue.

To help convince County Board supervisors to support creating the tax in 1998, a sunset clause was added to 1998 Ordinance 6 creating the local sales tax requiring a second vote by the County Board in 2006 if it wants to end the tax. If no vote is taken, the tax will continue.

A proposed amendment to Tuesday's resolution that would create a second sunset clause for 2010 was defeated by the board on a 17-10 vote. That amendment was proposed by James Esselmann, County Board supervisor from the town of Trenton and chairman of the board's Finance Committee.