Boone County Commissioners approve sales-tax renewal for August ballot

The Boone County Commissioners decided Thursday afternoon to place a renewal of a road and bridge maintenance sales tax on the August ballot.

The sales tax doesn’t raise enough money to build new roads and bridges, but it does raise about $3 million a year to maintain the roads and bridges in the county.

The county’s one-half of one percent road sales tax and common road property tax decrease is set to expire on Sept. 30, 2018. It was first introduced in 1993 and has been renewed three times since then.

This would not increase the sales tax but Parry said without it, the property tax will have to increase.

On Tuesday, the commissioners had their first hearing on the issue. Three people opposed the commission’s proposal to make the tax permanent instead of renewable.

Resident Roger Fries said he thought that the tax should remain renewable because he wasn’t confident that future commissioners would use the tax for its intended purpose.

Commissioners announced Thursday they had decided to honor the wishes of those residents, including others who had called and emailed.

“If people feel like taking the sunset out of the tax makes it less transparent and creates less accountability, by all means we’ll put the sunset back in,” Parry said. “This tax is so critical to Boone County in terms of funding road improvements that we decided that we don’t want to jeopardize the tax by making it permanent.”

Parry said the commission originally decided to make the tax permanent because the past three votes to renew passed with a super majority.

“Obviously, there’s widespread support for it,” he said.

According to the Boone County clerk, putting the measure on the ballot costs $190,000.

In addition to concerns about the permanence of the tax, several residents also lamented the use of a sales tax instead of something like a property tax.

“Sales taxes are the most regressive tax commonly in use,” said Sean Reberry.

Parry said he liked the use of a sales tax instead of a property tax because Columbia is a regional hub and people who don’t live in Boone County use the roads frequently.

“This is a way to get people who use our roads to pay for our roads,” he said. “If it were just the people who lived in Columbia and owned property, it would make sense. But because it’s a service that is used by more than just property, it is a cost and a burden for all who use our roads.”

“If you rely on property tax only, the vast majority of students that come to the University of Missouri, Stephens College and Columbia College wouldn’t be paying into the network that they utilize,” said Commissioner Janet Thompson.