Towns plan meeting to discuss change in sales tax distribution

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July 18, 2012

Towns plan meeting to discuss change in sales tax distribution

By Benjamin Bullard The Cullman Times The Cullman Times Wed Jul 18, 2012, 09:16 AM CDT

Dodge City will host a town hall meeting Thursday to discuss an effort to change the way Cullman County’s sales tax revenues are distributed to its 12 local governments.

That effort, promoted by some mayors of the county’s smaller towns, seeks a legislative reworking of existing state laws that govern how much locally-generated sales taxes the Cullman County Commission, the City of Cullman, and the rest of the county’s cities and towns each receive.

Proponents are calling for a new system that would apportion all non-education sales tax revenues to each of the county’s local governments according to their populations.

Organizer Glen Johnson of Holly Pond said the meeting isn’t intended to put forward a single alternative to the system that’s currently being used. Rather, he said Monday, it’s a gathering of people who feel that there has to be a more equitable way to send sales tax revenues to local municipalities.

“The idea is just to show the disparity of the population to taxes,” said Johnson. “I don’t think that our legislators have been told, ‘You need to do this or that;’ what the towns have said is, ‘You need to do something.’

“The best case scenario for a change is for all of the local entities; every town and government, to come together and put together a proposal that we give, all together, to our legislators. That’s still in the future; it would be the first of the year before the legislature could really take any action on it, but we need to be reaching out now to every community that’s affected by this.”

West Point mayor Kenneth Kilgo will present ideas Thursday on revising the local tax structure. At a similar town hall event in May, Kilgo said it’s only fair that local municipalities receive a portion of sales tax revenues that reflects their towns’ contribution to the county’s population total.

Detractors of a population-based sales tax revision argue that such a plan essentially amounts to a regressive measure; one that asks the county’s strongest sales tax generators — led by the City of Cullman — to give up massive amounts of revenues they’ve worked hard to create for their own residents, as well as for the county as a whole.

Johnson said he’s asked the local legislative delegation, as well as leaders from the City of Cullman and the Cullman County Commission, to attend.

The town hall meeting will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 19, in the basement of the Dodge City town hall, located on Howard Circle off Ala. Highway 69 in Dodge City.

* Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.

Click on headlines below for more on this story.

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