Madison County residents overwhelmingly defeated the proposed countywide half cent sales tax increase yesterday with 64% of voters saying NO.  Rich McAdams, president of the Madison County school board, is already leveling threats.

“Three years from now we’re going to have 400 portables spread out across the county,” he said, “and we’re going to stop hiding them behind the schools.”

That’s right, they’re going to make efforts to shame you into wanting to give them more money.

You want even more boldness?  The body of the sales tax isn’t even cold yet, but…

McAdams said the county schools could approach the commission to reconsider the half-cent.

“That’s been the only hope to me,” said McAdams, saying support in certain districts might sway individual commissioners. “Winning countywide wasn’t what had to occur.”

The commission retains the authority to add the half-cent. Julian Butler, attorney for the commission, said the commission agreed to a “binding” referendum, but it’s not clear how long a “no” would be binding.

Just as I suggested last night, the county commission can still impose the sales tax despite the lopsided defeat.  I’m just shocked that McAdams would be so dumb as to flat out admit that is his strategy.  One would think he would wait until after the November election to state that publicly.  Now Roger Jones, Jerry Craig, and Mike Gillespie - the only incumbents with general election opponents (and all supporters of the tax at one time or another) - will have to face tough questions from constituents about their intent to pass the tax after November.  If I were running against them I would pass along McAdams’ comments to every voter I could find.

I think Mo Brooks summed up the situation best:

In a six-page memo against the sales tax increase, County Commissioner Mo Brooks wrote: “It is remarkable people move into rural Madison County for lower tax rates and then complain about the reduced services because they refuse to pay higher taxes.”

Bingo.  Everyone I talk to who lives in the county cites the low property taxes (16 mills versus 27 in Madison and 27.5 in Huntsville) as a prime reason.  Don’t complain about getting services in line with the tax rate.  The problem with this specific tax increase proposal was that it was county wide.  The county was trying to effectively export money from the city and force Huntsville residents to pay a tax we didn’t need.  Huntsville could pass their own sales tax increase at any time - and keep more money than they would have under the county wide plan.  But Huntsville schools don’t need the money.

The Madison County schools need to do now what they should have done two years ago when they started pushing for the sales tax increase: try to raise property taxes only in the unincorporated parts of the county.  If that doesn’t work then do what the rest of us do and make the best out of what you have.

Related content:

This entry was posted by Brian on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 5:58 am and is filed under Madison County, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.