Madison County Sales Tax Vote Tomorrow
Posted by BrianUpdate: For the calendar impaired, such as me, the commission’s next meeting is on Friday 10/27, not Thursday 10/26 as I initially thought.
Tomorrow the Madison County Commission will vote on the proposed county wide half cent sales tax increase. I’ve detailed why I think this increase is a bad idea here, here, here, here, and here (just to name a few).
Here is a position paper by Madison County Commissioner Faye Dyer. It is interesting to note that the Madison City Schools claimed that they were comfortable with their capital plan as recently as late last year. Why the change of heart?
The truth is that Madison City and Huntsville schools don’t need the money. Madison County “needs” the money. I say “needs” because they still haven’t shown the fiscal responsibility that is a prerequisite for need. Regardless, the two city school districts are riding the coat tails of the county school district.
How do I know Huntsville doesn’t need the money you ask? It’s simple. Using FY 2006 data, just over $16M in taxes were paid in Huntsville under the current countywide half cent sales tax. The Huntsville schools received about $9M in revenue. If the Huntsville schools really needed the money they would ask the city council to impose a city wide half cent sales tax. It would have the same impact on the consumer as the county wide tax, but would net an additional $7M in revenue for the schools.
Contact your Madison County Commissioner today and urge him (or her) to oppose the sales tax increase!
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June 12th, 2007 at 5:12 am
[...] Back in October of 2006 I made the case that Huntsville and Madison were simply riding the coattails of Madison County. They saw the opportunity to get some more revenue with minimal effort (or so they thought). The “smell test” for me was the fact that Huntsville generates about 76% of sales in the county, but would only get to keep less than 50% of the revenue under the county wide plan. The county wide tax would export about $7 million dollars of revenue out of Huntsville. If the city leaders in Huntsville saw the need to increase school funding they would impose a city-only tax increase and reap the full rewards. The fact that they didn’t - and still will not - tells me that Huntsville doesn’t need the money. [...]