As La Plata County officials mull ballot question options to raise revenues, talk of a sales tax increase has resurfaced.
This week, the La Plata County Commission and the county-appointed Long-Term Finance Committee toyed with how a sales tax increase might appeal to voters compared with another mill levy increase proposal.
In the past, one of the options suggested to raise revenue was a 0.53 sales tax increase. Committee members agreed to figure out how much of an increase would adequately fund roads and bridges, and equate it to a property tax increase.
Revenue from a mill levy must be shared with municipalities but is not required for a sales tax.
Talk previously focused on a property tax increase proposal, but a similar measure failed 52 to 48 percent on the ballot last November. The proposal was a maximum 2.4-mill increase, which would have raised property taxes for the first time in a quarter century.
County officials estimated the increase would have produced about $50 million and funded up to 83 percent of the county’s road and bridge needs over 10 years.
La Plata County ranks fourth in the state for lowest property tax, while sales tax is slightly above the median.
Commissioner Brad Blake said a sales tax increase number should be “kept simple” if presented to voters. “Instead of going for one-third, maybe a half,” he said. “There was confusion what it meant to them. If you say the quarter-cent or the half-cent sales tax, they get it.”
But Commissioner Julie Westendorff held to the concept of a mill levy specifically for road and bridge funds.
“My instinct, my gut reaction, is that road and bridge funding needs to be a mill levy proposal,” she said. “It’s something philosophically that road and bridge is something everyone is using and should be tied to property taxes.”
However, some people would rather see a sales tax hike, which takes advantage of tourists who spend in Durango.
“Durango (and therefore La Plata County), being a tourist town, gets a disproportionately large amount of its sales tax from tourists who also use the roads,” Nick Harper commented on The Durango Herald website.
“A sales tax is the fairest,” Mark Mahlum agreed in a website comment. “If I use county services by driving the roads, why should you pay for it simply because you’ve been more successful? We should pay for the services we each use. Anything else is regressive and unjust.”
Voters may be pressed for other projects this fall, including an $85 million terminal expansion to the Durango-La Plata County Airport. But Commissioner Gwen Lachelt said anecdotally the airport proposal isn’t drumming up as much support compared with road and bridge funding.
“I’m not hearing that from citizens,” she said. “There are some from the business community who support it, but not the average La Plata County citizen. They say if you guys need road and bridge funding, do it for road and bridge funding.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
