City: timeline better than tax cap

Members of the Green River City Council believe funding a future sixth-penny tax should be based on a timeframe to pay the tax off, not an arbitrary cap on request amounts.

Comments from Council representatives resulted from a meeting where city officials presented potential sixth-penny tax projects to the Sweetwater County commissioners Tuesday morning. Commissioners have vocally supported a future tax ballot amounting to $80-$100 million, with Chairman Wally Johnson saying he supported requests amounting closer to $80 million. The last tax initiative, passed in 2012, totaled $81.8 million and collection ended April 2018, five years after the 1 percent sales tax was levied.

An appeal to levying future sixth-cent taxes based on a projected timeline to pay the amount requested allows for local governments to seek more funding. According to City Administrator Reed Clevenger, an eight-year timeline for project funding would generate $144 million for projects. Green River’s portion of a $175 million list of proposed projects is $53 million, 30 percent of the total. Municipal governments have been tasked with prioritizing their project lists, but Green River’s representatives believe the projects they’re seeking sixth-penny tax funding for are all needed improvements.

“We agreed all of it is a priority,” Clevenger said.

For Councilman Gary Killpack, the fear in limiting sixth-penny improvement projects to amounts that can be paid off in four or five years will cause the cost of projects not included on a sixth-penny ballot to increase and force governing bodies to continually push new ballot initiatives once tax amounts are paid off. Killpack believes they should push for as many years of sixth-penny tax funding as possible.

Clevenger said other Wyoming counties have viewed the issue as a funding period, seeking eight to 10 years or even 12-15 years of special tax funding. A belief also exists that pushing for a higher funding amount will be offset by future expansion projects announced by Ciner and Genesis Alkali. Because the sales tax is paid by anyone purchasing goods within the county, temporary workers can pay the tax off faster. Clevenger said the area will see 400-600 temporary jobs within the next four or five years. He said Albany County officials noticed nearly 70 percent of their tax was paid for by nonresidents.