In looking to the future, the Cannon County Commissioners voted on a couple of resolutions designed to bring more revenue into the County during their monthly meeting Thursday evening. Resolution 2015-4 which was to levy an additional sales and use tax was passed by an 8 to 2 vote. The two commissioners that voted against the sales tax was Russell Reed and Brent Bush. The matter will now go before the Cannon County voting public which will vote in March. If voted in, the sales tax will go from 8.75 percent to 9.75 percent. Many commissioners agreed that all the surrounding counties are current at the 9.75 percent and a lot of Cannon County residents do most of their consumer business outside the county so in turn they would be used to paying the increase anyway. Resolution 2015-5 which is to levy an additional county wide motor vehicle tax passed by a 7-3 vote on first reading. This is to add $20.00 to the county wheel tax sticker taking it from $74.25 to $94.25. This source of revenue was originally set up to help fund the increasing expenditures in the 2015-2016 fiscal year budget. However after the Cannon County Budget Committee voted on this, it was found out that the issue had to pass two consecutive readings and therefore would not be eligible to fund this year’s increases due to the budget having to be approved by September 1st. After this passed the first reading with only Commissioners Russell Reed, Jim Bush and Brent Bush voting against it. It will now go before the Commission on the second and final reading. If it passes, there still is no guarantee that it will go into effect. Information was shared during the commissioners meeting that citizens would then have 30 days to petition against the wheel tax proposal and if enough signatures are on that petition, it would also be put to vote by the Cannon County registered voters in March’s election.
The meeting started off with Ben Rodgers who is Cannon County’s representative of the County Technical Advisory Service also known as CTAS. He informed the commissioners of the pros and cons of implementing a Senior Tax Freeze. According to figures from the Property Assessor’s Office 328 Cannon County citizens are on the property tax relief program which is different than the Senior Tax Freeze. 40 of those 328 are new to the tax relief program this year. A total of 17 percent of the population in Cannon County is age 65 or older. The tax freeze program insures that eligible participants property tax will not go up while they are eligible. It is unsure of the actual number of Cannon County citizens that qualify for the tax freeze program. 23 counties and 29 cities in the state of Tennessee participate in the program, but Rodgers warned the Commission that counties that adopt the tax freeze program have to hire additional help to implement it.
After Rodgers was through giving the information, Commissioner Brent Bush tried to make a motion to pass the property tax freeze however there was no second given and the motion failed. Most of the commissioners wanted to see what implementing the program would cost as far as labor and overhead expenses compared to what it would save the taxpayers that qualify. A Committee was formed with Commissioners Brent Bush, Mark Barker, Richie Hunter and Karen Ashford to study the matter further and report back to the Commission at a later meeting.
The Cannon County Commissioners will meet at a later date this month to consider approval of the expenditures and funding of this fiscal year’s budget. In the meantime the Cannon County Budget Committee will meet one more time Tuesday at 5:00 at the Cannon County Courthouse
