Green River residents will receive mailers aimed to educate them on the need for a 1% sales tax increase this week, beginning efforts to inform voters before the Nov. 2 special election.
Steve Core, communications administrator for the city, said the mailers were part of a multi-pronged strategy including digital outreach and a column to be submitted to the county’s publications.
According to Core, the city has been an active participant throughout the process and said the plan amongst the group was to have multiple groups providing input on how that educational outreach is handled.
The efforts begin less than three weeks until the election itself, with more than 800 absentee ballots having already been processed by the Sweetwater County Clerk’s Office. The educational efforts were originally intended to start in mid September, but questions on how the governmental coalition supporting the tax could word language in its mailer resulted in a conversation between attorneys representing the county and cities and the Wyoming Attorney General’s office. That led to a determination that taxpayer funds could be used to educate, but not promote passage of the sales tax and necessitated changes to the publication.
Last week, the Sweetwater County commissioners originally planned to discuss possible amendments, alternatives or a rescission of the tax proposal, which changed to the commissioners voting to educate residents about the tax following an executive session prior to that scheduled discussion.
Core said another delay came when the Rock Springs City Council voted against sharing the costs associated the educational push.
“Having Rock Springs vote not to share in the costs of education, created a delay because direction then needed to be reviewed by the county and other entities,” Core wrote in an email to the Star. “This initiative was approved to move forward to a vote by a majority of the entities in the county, and a focus on education will be done within the timeframe left to the election.”
The tax is seen by local governments as a means to overcome budgetary challenges by funding fire and police services, ambulance services, and the joint dispatch center in Green River, all of which total more than $36 million for the two cities and the county. This would open up the governments’ general funds for other uses, such as capital projects. Up to a quarter of the 1% tax would also be earmarked for economic development uses. Estimates on the 10-year average suggest the tax would bring in approximately $17 million annually, though current sales tax collections would be lower than that amount.
“With the county asking the cities to help with the ambulance subsidies early in the calendar year, that were not in their budgets, it quickly pushed forward other meetings we were having around the subjects of funding needs, shared expenses and consolidations, if possible, and more specifically around public safety and economic development,” Core wrote.
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