Town Council

Sales tax increase proposed

 

Last updated 4/24/2016 at 5:54pm



Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Stedman submitted a proposal to the Odessa Town Council at their last meeting on April 11 that would increase the sales tax collected within Lincoln County by 3/10 of one percent. The rate, which is currently 7.7 percent, would rise to 8.0 percent. The taxes collected now go four different entities. The state of Washington get 6.5 percent, local jurisdictions get 1.0 percent, criminal justice gets 0.1 percent and emergency communications get 0.1 percent. If the tax rate is raised to 8.0 percent, the added 0.3 percent would be dedicated solely to public safety, with 60 percent of the total going to the county and 40 percent going to the towns and cities based on their population.

The eight municipalities in Lincoln County are Almira, Creston, Davenport, Harrington, Odessa, Reardan, Sprague and Wilbur. Stedman and his fellow commissioners, Rob Coffman and Scott Hutsell, studied the issue of declining revenue collected by those towns and cities and by the county as a whole. Ever since Tim Eyman’s Initiative-747 was passed by voters, property tax increases imposed by the legislature have been limited to one percent of the amount collected the previous year. Expenses incurred by local, county and state governments, however, have continued to increase yearly by three to five percent.

The result, said Stedman, is that local governments become unable to provide the same level of service as in the preceding year. Continuous cuts are thus required in the level of essential services to residents. The county, cities and towns have done their best to eliminate waste, improve efficiency and do more with less. Every office in the courthouse is now at or below minimum staffing levels, and the Sheriff’s Office is down three deputies, said Stedman. It is no longer possible to provide the same level of service without additional revenue.

If all eight towns and cities in Lincoln County agree to draft and approve resolutions in support of the county’s efforts to raise revenue through the sales tax increase, the commissioners will then place the proposition on the ballot for the General Election to be held in November of this year.

Author Bio

Terrie Schmidt-Crosby, Editor

Terrie Schmidt-Crosby is an editor with Free Press Publishing. She is the former owner and current editor of the Odessa Record, based in Odessa, Wash.

 

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