City to discuss potential sales tax increase
By Bruce Wallace
The Ashland Board of Aldermen were to have some initial discussions Tuesday evening which could lead to Ashland residents voting on a sales tax increase in 2009.
City Administrator Chris Heard said Tuesday that he would provide aldermen the different options for sales tax authority given to municipalities by the State of Missouri.
The City of Ashland currently imposes a general revenue tax at one percent and the capital improvements tax at .05 percent. Heard will be providing the aldermen information on the option of putting a .05 (half-penny) percent sales tax as a transportation tax in front of the voters next year.
There is no doubt that as the City of Ashland grows, the tax base grows with it. However, the question in front of the aldermen - and possibly the voters - will be whether or not the city is "leaving money on the table" by not taxing itself another half-penny for improvements.
"We have averaged about $122,000 in revenue with the capital improvements tax over the past five years," Heard said Tuesday. "The first eight months of this calendar year, we have about $84,000 and last year at this time, we had about $86,454 - so we are down about three percent."
Heard emphasized that he did not make policy, but he would provide aldermen options.
"I will relay the facts to them for discussion," Heard said. "My recommendation would be that we work to get more funds for the city resources so we can do more projects."
Currently the city utilizes its capital improvements tax to pay for maintenance on many items that could be covered in a transportation tax - such as streets and sidewalks. The capital improvements fund could then be used for other future projects. Capital improvement funds may also be used to repay bonds as long as the bonds are used for such capital improvements, according to the Missouri Municipal League.