{"id":38,"date":"2006-04-14T12:02:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-14T16:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=38"},"modified":"2006-10-27T08:01:27","modified_gmt":"2006-10-27T12:01:27","slug":"may-30-tax-vote-likely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=38","title":{"rendered":"May 30 Tax Vote Likely"},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears<\/a> that Anderson County Schools Superintendent-turned-County Commissioner, V.L. Stonecipher, has finally succeeded in gathering enough valid signatures to force a sales tax referendum on elevating the sales tax countywide.<\/p>\n

My objection to this effort is not raising the sales tax; obviously, citizens have the right to do that by referendum. My objection is that all it really does is to reallocate tax revenue from four incorporated cities to the County.<\/p>\n

Two years ago when Oak Ridge voters overwhelmingly approved a sales tax referendum to fund the note on reconstructing Oak Ridge High School, there was a “gentlemen’s agreement” with county officials to not supersede the tax rate for a period of five years.<\/p>\n

Doing so at this point puts a serious dent in the financing plan for the high school renovations, which have already been contracted and begun.<\/p>\n

How can these four cities — indisputably, the economic engines of the County — make up the difference in their budgets if the referendum (in which none of their residents can vote) should pass?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. property tax increases<\/li>\n
  2. annexation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The referendum is being sold to County voters as “it won’t really affect the taxes you pay, since you shop in the cities anyway; it’s just taking money from them and keeping it for yourself.”<\/p>\n

    Maybe County Commission needs to re-think their position on allowing Clinton to annex the property near I-75, which would generate a lot of new sales and property tax revenue for the County. Maybe they need to think about growing the pie, instead of eating someone else’s piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It appears that Anderson County Schools Superintendent-turned-County Commissioner, V.L. Stonecipher, has finally succeeded in gathering enough valid signatures to force a sales tax referendum on elevating the sales tax countywide. My objection to this effort is not raising the sales … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}