A special purpose tax is a great tool for communities wanting to make improvements that all residents can benefit from. Road replacement, water and sewer upgrades, even construction of needed facilities can be accomplished through this tax, commonly known as the sixth penny tax because it’s implementation creates a 6 percent sales tax within Sweetwater County.
For Green River and other towns within the county, the tax has become a needed source of funding to pay for construction they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. This isn’t the fault of the local governing bodies as funding has become a challenge since the statewide tax on groceries was abolished and the Wyoming Legislature ended the practice of earmarking funding appropriations to bills. Promises of a new funding model were made. However, a massive influx of revenue from the booming natural gas industry halted those discussions. Local municipal governments haven’t had a means of generating stable revenue outside of the sales taxes.
Towns and counties don’t get to keep the whole 4 percent sales tax. The state takes 69 percent of whatever’s collected in that 4 percent, while municipalities and counties take remaining amount. That 31 percent is then divided by population. An optional 1 percent sales tax is levied in Sweetwater County, 99 percent of which stays in the county, but from the $1 in sales tax a $20 purchase yields, the county and municipal governments only receive 45 cents.
Couple this with continual increases in the cost of repairing infrastructure and it isn’t hard to see why many cities struggle funding those projects. Communities need the sixth penny. Yet, more and more outside groups eye the sixth penny for their needs, many of which are hard to argue against. For example, needed renovations at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County are an infrastructure improvement as the hospital is a necessary piece of the community. But, this also takes money away from communities.
There are two answers to this problem: either the tax should be limited to communities or the pie everyone is reaching into should be larger. Limiting the tax to only communities is counter intuitive, so we should start thinking about a larger pie.
It may be best to have multiple options on the 2020 ballot. For example, voters could decide on project packages for infrastructure, healthcare and quality of life uses. An $80 million option to fund municipal street repairs, water projects and the like would help the municipalities, but shouldn’t be hindered by request from the area’s hospitals or the events complex. Likewise, a proposal to renovate the Green River Recreation Center doesn’t quite fit with street repairs, but would go well on a package featuring the Sweetwater County Events Complex renovations.
Voters should have the ability to vote for different tax packages. We know the reason why our leaders are seeking to keep everything on one ballot initiative because it improves the chances of project being approved that voters might otherwise not want.
But, as it’s ultimately up to the voters to approve or kill a sixth penny ballot initiative, it’s equally up to local governments and other groups to inform voters why they need this funding. If a package fails, it comes to either county residents not wanting to fund it and a group’s inability to convince voters a project is needed. It’s become clear that $80-100 million the county commissioners want to kept the sixth penny tax to isn’t enough for all the requests. It might be time to think in larger amounts and list more tax initiatives on the ballot, giving voters the final decision on how much they’ll pay and what it would go to.
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