A Bloody Mess

In a year of searching for revenue to offset an enormous deficit, the County Commission declined to approve a mineral tax. In a 10-8 vote (taking 14 to pass), the Commission decided that the risk to reward ratio of the mineral tax just didn’t make sense for Jefferson County. Like many of the Commissioners, I have been holding off judgment on the tax until more information became available. After researching the issue, I have come to the conclusion that this tax will not save us. It will not plug a hole and it cannot shoulder our revenue needs. Certainly, as some Commissioners argued, it will bring in something and isn’t that better than nothing? Maybe and maybe not. It depends. What is the residual cost of the tax to Jefferson County? Lay offs have recently taken place at one large mine. We give lip service to bringing good paying jobs to Jefferson County and the mines do pay well. Do we add to their burden with an additional tax and possibly find our people unemployed? The Commission, or at least 8 of them, say no.

The strongest argument for the mineral tax is the current deficit that is around $2 million dollars after the increase in wheel tax. But that argument only stands if the mineral tax is used to offset that deficit, which is a crap shoot. The Budget Committee assumed garnering $750,000 from the tax but that number was found to be way out of line. Not only is the estimate significantly less, maybe 20 % of that number or so, it was discovered that out of state sales are not taxed and neither is the amount of product that is stockpiled and no figures were available on how much is stockpiled. Realistically, is could be that Jefferson County only begins to collect this tax during the last few months of the fiscal year, meaning that it will not do much, if any, to off set this year’s budget woes. Unsure figures, time and risk dealt the death blow to this tax. But perhaps it was Commissioner Douglas that made one of the strongest arguments against the mineral tax. After pointing out that the mineral tax can only be used for roads, Douglas made the point that the Commission had just approved a property tax abatement for a new retail car dealership that was looking to locate in Jefferson County, yet that same Commission is considering adding an additional tax to an existing Jefferson County business. And he is exactly right. The very arguments that were made for approving the tax abatement in a time of budget crisis, are the arguments that should be made against adding an additional tax to an existing business and employer. Fair is fair and this should not be a decision of politics but one of government.

So, it is back to the drawing board. The School Board motioned cutting the top 10% of employees from their salary increase and is looking to add to the lowest classified employees. The Budget Committee will be looking at line item cuts to County budgets to make up the $750,000 that they assumed would come from the mineral tax. I’d say that everyone and everything is fair game for the chopping block and, as anyone that has ever attended a budgeting meeting knows, the more cuts the bloodier things become. This could get really, really messy.