Twice killed, the quarter-cent Lenoir County sales tax is back from the dead.
N.C. Rep. George Graham, D-Lenoir, filed a bill Thursday giving Lenoir County commissioners the authority to impose a quarter-cent sales and use tax through a resolution, instead of putting a referendum on the ballot.
Lenoir County voters rejected the referendum in 2008 and 2012, ending the proposal last year by a vote of 62 percent to 37 percent.
Graham said he’s simply giving the commissioners another option; he said the county needs the money to replace other revenue.
“When (the state) took away the Medicaid and Medicare dollars and took away the lottery funds that we were using — and I’m sure other counties, too, were using — for schools and other things, they put an option out there of a quarter-cent sales tax to replace the funds,” Graham said.
“Some counties, I don’t know how many but I know it’s more than 25, have adopted it and are going on and replacing those revenues. We’ve not been able to, and we’ve had two efforts at it here in Lenoir. … The longer we don’t replace them, the more strain it puts in local budgets.”
If the bill passes the General Assembly, the imposition of the sales tax isn’t necessarily a sure thing. Lenoir County Commission Chairman Reuben Davis, a Democrat, said it would be “wonderful” to have the choice of passing the tax, as the county is in need of revenue sources and wants to pass the next fiscal year’s budget without raising property taxes.
“I don’t think there would be a backlash that we would have the option. If we exercised the option, that’s when you would have a problem,” Davis said. “I don’t think it would be a problem whatsoever if we had the authority, as long as we didn’t use the authority. If we used the authority, that’s when it gets hairy.”
He added the commissioners would cut departments where necessary in order to avoid any tax hikes.
Commissioner J. Mac Daughety, a Republican, said he believes, “through no fault of his own,” Graham’s nomination for the N.C. House of Representatives last year ended up as a distraction from the effort to educate the public on the tax and encourage the electorate to vote yes. Commission Vice-Chairwoman Jackie Brown, a Democrat, said the public wasn’t given enough information on the matter, as well.
However, Daughety said that since voters rejected the tax twice, he wouldn’t back it if the decision returned to the board of commissioners.
“We are going to be headed into budget sessions with a $2.25 million deficit to make up,” Daughety said. “That’s a lot to make up, and I don’t know if it’s going to result in some drastic cuts in services, which I think are probably very painful to the citizens. But unless the citizens come back today and tell me that they want the sales tax voted on by the county commissioners, I’m not going to vote for it, because they voted against it in the fall, rightly or wrongly.”
Commissioner Eric Rouse, a Republican, isn’t inclined to go against the previous votes, either.
“It’s been defeated twice by the public, and I’m not going to go against the public,” Rouse said. “I think it’s pretty clear the citizens of Lenoir County are opposed to it.”
Speaking on Friday, N.C. Rep. John Bell, R-Wayne, said he looked into the proposal and plans to speak to Graham about it, but will discuss the matter Monday with Graham and the House leadership.
“I have not yet talked to Rep. Graham about it, but I’ve done some research on it, and the citizens of Lenoir County have had a chance to vote on that quarter-cent sales tax twice and have unanimously turned it down and said, ‘I don’t want that tax increase,’” Bell said. “So, I support the voices of Lenoir County and the citizens of Lenoir County — that’s what they sent me up here to do.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at WolfeReports.
Breakout Box
House Bill 87
n ‘Lenoir County Local Option Sales Tax’
n Primary sponsor: Rep. George Graham, D-Lenoir
n View the bill at: ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/HTML/H87v0.html