The Jefferson city council and the Greene County board of supervisors are both discussing the language for a request on the Nov. 4 ballot to extend for another 10 years the current 1-cent local option sales and service tax, the LOSST. Both groups hope to make the language as unrestrictive as possible, while giving taxpayers some assurance it will be spent wisely.
The Jefferson city council discussed the language at its July 22 meeting. City attorney Bob Schwarzkopf explained to the council that the current language is more restrictive than was intended. Ten years ago, when the LOSST was first put on the ballot, it was proposed to fund infrastructure, with “streets/water/sewer” in parentheses. He said the parenthetical information was meant only to be informative examples, but that in legal interpretation, it specifies the LOSST funds can be used only for those three things. LOSST funds cannot currently be used on buildings.
The council will most likely approve ballot language naming only “infrastructure” without examples. Council members plan to launch an educational campaign letting voters know how the funds have been spent in the past and what future needs may be.
The LOSST approved by rural voters calls for the funds to be used totally for rural property tax relief and rural betterment. At its July 28 meeting, supervisor Guy Richardson, who lives in the city of Jefferson, suggested eliminating “rural” from the language. “There are have been a couple of times that we wished we had a little more money available for something else and it didn’t fit into that,” Richardson said. “We’d just like to put ourselves in a position where it’s not completely qualified. It gives us options. We want to untie our hands.”
County engineer Wade Weiss said the LOSST has been good for the secondary roads department, that work has been done on gravel roads with the funds. Richardson said he doesn’t foresee a change in the availability of funds for roads.
“If some other emergency should arise, we’d have the money,” supervisor Dawn Rudolph said.
The board’s consensus is that the proposal will specify that 100 percent of the funds be used for property tax relief. It could still be used for rural projects, but “if you want to use it for something that’s not rural-related, you’ve covered your base,” deputy auditor Billie Jo Hoskins clarified for the board.
A resolution approving the ballot language will be on the supervisors’ agenda next Monday.
“The bigger issue will be making sure it succeeds in the vote, that those funds are still available,” board chair John Muir said.
Supervisor Tom Contner is worried that rural residents will see the change in wording as a hit to rural funding. “I hate to take it away from the country people. They could see it that way,” he said.
Ballot language must be approved by Aug. 27. The LOSST is up for renewal in all county towns except Churdan.
