Boone County residents vote against use tax in special election

Boone County residents will not be seeing a use tax after voting it down in a special election on Tuesday.

54 percent of Boone County voters said no to the 1.75 percent use tax while 46 percent were in favor of the tax.

Boone County presiding commissioner Dan Atwill told ABC 17 News commissioners will start talking about new ways to generate money this week.

“We’ll keep working hard to provide the best service possible under the circumstances,” he said. “This is a great county and it will continue to be a great county. We’ll have to do more with less.”

He said right now commissioners have no plans in mind about putting the use tax on the ballot again or looking at another tax.

This tax was expected to generate about $1.28 million for the county each year.

Commissioners said the money would have likely gone toward things like law enforcement and road and bridge projects in the county.

The use tax measure also failed in Ashland and Harrisburg.

In Ashland, the two percent use tax measure failed by 59 percent. Mayor Gene Rhorer said the tax was expected to generate $30-40,000 a year for the city.

79 percent of Harrisburg voters who showed up to the polls Tuesday voted against the one percent use tax for the city.