Should voters be asked a FIFTH time about a 1/4-cent local option sales tax they have consistently turned down?
Alamance County’s commissioners have two ways to deal with the county’s growing expenses. They can either pare back some of their existing outlays to make room for new ones. Or they can drum up some additional revenues to cover the costs.
At the moment, the most straightforward way for the commissioners to expand their revenues is to increase the county’s property tax rate. Yet, the reluctance of the all-Republican board to pursue this option has left some commissioners contemplating another, more procedurally difficult, option that would also require a nod from Alamance County’s voters.
Under state law, the board of commissioners can add 1/4 cent to the 2-cent levy that the county currently receives from sales that occur in Alamance County. According to the county’s finance department, this “local option sales tax” would bring in an additional $7,658,168 a year – or the equivalent of 3.05 cents on the county’s property tax rate. But in order to avail themselves of this revenue, the commissioners would first have to put the question before the county’s voters, who have, so far, proven far less amenable to this surcharge than their elected leaders.
Over the years, the county has held four referenda on this local option sales tax – all of which have been roundly defeated when area residents have gone to the polls. This measure received its latest defeat in 2018, when the county’s leaders promoted the increased sales tax as a way to pay for $189.6 million in revenue bonds that the voters nevertheless approved that same year on behalf of the Alamance-Burlington school system and Alamance Community College.
In spite of the public’s consistent refusal to sign off on this measure, some members of the county’s governing board have been inclined to give it another go as the county’s financial obligations continue to mount.
Commissioner Kelly Allen was particularly supportive of the idea when it came up for discussion at Monday’s retreat.
“I know it’s failed four times,” she told the rest of the board. “But to me it’s the only fair tax because right now, we’re putting it all on the homeowners.”
Susan Evans, the county’s finance director, informed the commissioners that they would have to wait until the next countywide election in order to float this measure before the local electorate. She added that the earliest such a referendum can take place in 2026 – ruling out the additional sales tax receipts as a potential revenue source for the county’s next budget.
Meanwhile, the prospect of a sales tax increase drew a more cautious response from other members of the county’s governing board.
Steve Carter, the vice chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners, pointed out that sales taxes are inherently more volatile than property taxes due to dips and bumps in consumer spending. At the same time, commissioner Pam Thompson reminded her colleagues that the local option sales tax wouldn’t apply to groceries or gasoline.
“We’re thinking about all the tax we’d get from Buc-ee’s,” she added in reference to the national chain of “travel centers” that plans to set up a new outlet in Mebane. “But all that is food and gas.”
