School board members back higher sales tax
Hoping to use any extra sales tax money to fund a number of school renovation projects, including a new school at Centertown and teacher raises, the Warren County Board of Education is urging county citizens to support the upcoming referendum to increase the local option sales tax.
“We think everyone in the county needs to get out and support this,” said school board chairman David Sneed. “We’re losing out on this money now and we’d like to use it primarily to pay for these renovation projects we’re looking at, projects that are going to have to be done one way or the other. We’d like to do them without asking for a property tax increase.”
With the start of early voting one week from today, county voters will be going to the polls to decide whether to increase the local option sales tax from 2 percent to the state maximum 2.75 percent. City voters passed a similar referendum in September.
If passed by county voters, half of all the increased local option sales tax revenues, estimated to be around $1 million a year, must go to schools, according to state law. If not, the city will continue to keep all new proceeds.
“It’s a win-win situation for us and county voters,” said Sneed. “If they shop in the city, everyone’s already paying the higher rate anyway. Now, if this passes, we’d get some of that too.”
Beverly Crouch, co-chair of the local teachers’ union, said it was this logic that convinced the Warren County Education Association’s membership to vote almost unanimously in support of the referendum.
“It just makes sense to us,” she said.
But while, by law, half of all new sales tax revenues must go to the local education entity, it is not yet certain the school system would actually receive any additional money if the referendum passes.
It is feared by some in the system that any additional revenue raised by the tax would simply be used to replace other monies the Warren County Commission currently allocates to local schools, thus freeing up funds to be used elsewhere in the county’s budget.
Sneed and others both inside and outside the system have voiced support for a plan which would put a portion of any additional tax revenue into the county’s debt service fund and which could be used to help fund the above mentioned renovation projects, which have an estimated cost of over $14 million.
Additionally, Sneed said he would like to see a part of any additional revenues be used to give raises to all school system personnel.
“Hopefully, we could get enough to bring Warren County more in line with the rest of the state,” said Sneed. “We’re losing people left and right. We need to pay them more if we want to keep them here, and if we want give people in college right now something to come back for.”