Dear editor,
As my service on the Allen County Commission has been coming to an end, I vowed not to involve myself in the race for my successor. I know and respect both John Brocker and Jon Wells, candidates in the general election to fill the District 3 seat, and wish them both well.
I was doing pretty well with that plan until I read both Mr. Wells’ comments from a candidate forum last week and in a Letter to the Editor in Monday’s Register regarding the proposed sales tax increase.
In those remarks, Jon has implied that the Commission is veiling the sales tax issue as a property tax reduction while we surreptitiously are planning a $600,000 tax increase for “an undisclosed and unnamed project” (Letter to the Editor, Oct. 15). “’In my mind, this is a tax increase — plain and simple — disguised as a tax decrease,’” he said at the Oct. 10 candidate forum.
The Allen County Commission is proposing a half-cent sales tax for voters to decide with their Nov. 12 ballots. I won’t speak for the other two current commissioners, but my thinking has been to give Allen Countians in my district a chance to consider the sales tax to replace a burden on property taxes to fund our approximate $2 million contract for Emergency Medical Services with the City of Iola. Our discussions at our public, open meetings throughout consideration, planning and execution of putting the issue on the ballot have been consistent and unanimous in that revenues raised from a sales tax increase would be used — in direct proportion — to reduce property taxes in our county by an equal amount.
In other words, if the additional sales tax raises $1.2 million per year — our expectations based on today’s sales tax receipts for the county — property taxes would be reduced by an equal amount. While our current Commission cannot obligate future commissioners to abide by our intention to replace property tax burden with sales tax revenue, we did insert a five-year sales tax renewal stipulation on the ballot question so that if future Commissions started using the sales tax revenue for something other than property tax relief, voters could weigh in on the sales tax question again before too much time had passed.
Further, when we developed our educational material — newspaper ads, etc. — we used a conservative figure of 4 mills as the property tax reduction equivalent to the sales tax revenues. Our thinking was to calculate low, so as not to over-promise property tax relief should sales tax collections not reach levels seen in recent years; however, my thinking is that actual sales tax revenues will mean about 7 mills in property tax relief next year and can be expected to grow when the planned Lehigh-Portland State Park opens and traffic to our county increases.
There certainly is no “undisclosed or unnamed project” planned, as Mr. Wells said. The ballot question is only a shift from property tax burden to sales tax revenues used to help pay for the EMS contract.
The choice belongs to the voters, plain and simple, and there are philosophical arguments against sales taxes which I certainly hear and understand. To clarify, today’s County Commission of which I am a member is simply placing that choice before voters in Allen County. If they decide not to approve the sales tax question in a few weeks, then EMS services will continue to be funded by property taxes, in addition to revenue from the service. Things will continue as they are, and residents will still receive the fine, professional, caring services of our ambulance crews whether the contract is paid through property taxes or sales tax revenues.
Sincerely,
Bruce Symes
Allen County Commissioner, District 3
