How Do You Feel About The One Penny Sales Tax Proposal?

[Conan71]

Councilors Eagleton, Bynum, Turner, Westcott, and Mautino are against the proposal, Henderson is obviously for it, and the remaining three councilors are undecided at this point.  We could definitely use an additional $66 mil a year for the operating budget, but what other avenues to we have we could look at to reduce dependence on the vagaries of a sales tax.  Personally, I'd be interested in seeing what our delegation in OKC could do in rounding up funds from the state level.

"City Councilor Jack Henderson plans to stop merely talking about the need for more public-safety funding Tuesday and propose a public vote on a penny increase in the city's sales-tax rate to benefit the Police, Fire and Park departments.

"I might be digging my political grave," he said with a chuckle Monday.

"But given the situation that Tulsa is in right now, we have to do something, or it won't be long before we don't even recognize our beautiful city anymore."

Henderson's proposal will be discussed at the council's 10 a.m. Tuesday committee meeting.

It involves boosting the city's sales-tax rate from 3 cents to 4 cents on the dollar, which would take the overall local tax rate, including the county and state shares, from 8.517 cents to 9.517 cents.

The penny increase would raise an average of about $66 million annually, council research indicates. The money would be used to supplement the funding that the Police, Fire and Park departments get from the general fund, he said."

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=16&articleid=20100209_11_A1_Tulsap551438&archive=yes

[RecycleMichael]

I am willing to pay a little more to live in a better community.

I could argue about the whole tax burden and how sales taxes are an unstable source of funding and unfairly punish the lower income residents...face it...I could argue anything.

But sales taxes will be collected on all the commuters who live outside and work inside the city limits if they shop or eat in Tulsa. We also learned that most of the other suburbs already have sales tax rates higher than Tulsa.

We have few solutions. I don't want to layoff cops, firemen and other city workers. I don't want to see the parks deteriorate and the rights-of-way go unmowed.

I will support additional funding that is spread to all users of city services.

[Red Arrow]

Sales tax is the easiest way to capture money from people who use the city but live outside (me).  People living inside Tulsa will not be likely to spend several dollars in gas/transportation to save $1.00 tax or $.50 tax per $100 spent.  It's bad economics for all but really large, infrequent, purchases.

[patric]

We still have a lot of waste we can eliminate (that is on the order of millions of dollars) before we should even consider more taxation.
This idea is just an extension of the poor leadership that got us into this mess.

[swake]

Sales taxes are so volatile and regressive, they are not a good primary basis for city funding. If it were up to me, groceries and services would not have sales tax on them.

Cities should split their funding sources between different types of taxes as protection against downturns like the current one. Property taxes could be used for things like public safety and parks. Such a tax would then also tax businesses that receive fire and police protection and would make it easier for cities to merge functions like fire departments into regional operations.  Sales taxes on non food sales would pay for the bulk of the rest of city operations and then add small city gas tax for local road maintenance.

I would not be in favor of a city income tax. It seems to me that states without income taxes do better with economic development and I think we should be moving in that direction.  I understand that removing income taxes does not mean lower taxes, just different taxes, but it does seem to work for a number of states.  I would be in favor of the state increasing use taxes, Auto fees, fuel taxes, business fees, and property taxes and ending the income tax altogether along with ending sales taxes on food and services.

But these kind of changes would take changes to state tax law and sensible things don't happen in the state capital very often, so I would be in favor of the additional sales tax for the city of Tulsa.

[sgrizzle]

Why not a 4.83c increase?

Make life easier, plus raise about $32M a year.

[Conan71]

I agree about no sales tax on groceries, but think how bad a crunch we would be in if that had been dropped already and we had no other revenue stream to replace it. 

Assuming the rest of the financial house were in order (i.e. cutting out waste) how does everyone feel about a state income tax increase targeted toward certain zip codes?  I honestly have no problem with that concept and felt previous income tax cuts approved on state income tax were premature and unnecessary at the time.  I'm typically very fiscally conservative.  To me conservatism doesn't mean necessarily lowering taxes at every turn, it means prudent management of financial resources at all times.

[RecycleMichael]

Why not a 4.83c increase?

Make life easier, plus raise about $32M a year.

That boys a thinkin man.

[Gaspar]

We still have a lot of waste we can eliminate (that is on the order of millions of dollars) before we should even consider more taxation.
This idea is just an extension of the poor leadership that got us into this mess.

Exactly. 

[Red Arrow]

how does everyone feel about a state income tax increase targeted toward certain zip codes? 

I think it would be a paperwork nightmare.  Live in one zip code, work in another?  Which do you pay?  Is it prorated if you have more than one job?  I'd rather not go there.

[Red Arrow]

Sales taxes are so volatile and regressive, they are not a good primary basis for city funding. If it were up to me, groceries and services would not have sales tax on them.

I don't know about now but in the 60s sales tax was exempted on groceries (real food, not soda/pop etc), clothing, and prescription drugs.  Makes it a bit less regressive.

Edit:  Oops, forgot to say it was in Pennsylvania.

[Breadburner]

Exactly.  

Excelence in  posting.......

We still have a lot of waste we can eliminate (that is on the order of millions of dollars) before we should even consider more taxation.
This idea is just an extension of the poor leadership that got us into this mess.


Cannot agree more.....

[Gaspar]

Funny story. . .

Last year a survey crew showed up in my neighborhood and surveyed the streets all day long up and down Pittsburg between 81st and 91st.   I asked one of the guys and they said they were under contract from the city to map the cracks in the asphalt.

They were mapping the cracks in the pavement and marking them with spray paint.  They did this for two months every day until the entire street was “stitched” with little orange, yellow, and green dashed lines. 

This first series of lines eventually faded and disappeared in the rains and sun.  Several months later they showed up again and spent another two months mapping and marking the cracks down Pittsburg every day from dawn until dusk.  \

Today if you drive down Pittsburg you can still see some of the lines.  Nothing was ever done, and no one really knows what the purpose of the crew really was.

Having worked in the development industry, I know how much a survey crew runs on an hourly basis.  Based on the amount of time these two guys spent with their line-of-sight and GPS equipment and little cans of multi-colored spray paint.  I can realistically estimate $100 thousand on the low, end and $140 thousand on the high end was spent on the cracks that were never fixed, and the lines that have all but faded away.

Anyone else have any good city waste stories?

Edited to correct my poor math!

[Conan71]

I think it would be a paperwork nightmare.  Live in one zip code, work in another?  Which do you pay?  Is it prorated if you have more than one job?  I'd rather not go there.

No, just simply by residence filing address on gross income only.  My idea was simply raising more revenue and tagging it for the areas that need it.  In other words, not collecting more money from Tulsa and splitting to OKC and Bugtussle, but rather let's say an income tax increase for everyone living within the city limits of Tulsa.  Then you can placate the "regressive taxation" crowd and also it isn't a city income tax which would require another little fiefdom to administrate.  It might require adding a few more employees at OTC, if that.  Certainly I realize people with multiple properties might claim their house in BA is their primary residence.  People who are bent on it will always find ways to skirt taxes.  I don't think this would cause any more of a flight to the suburbs than a sales tax or higher property taxes would. 

Again, all thoughts ONLY if the city gets the rest of its financial house in order and discovers it still cannot provide the basic services expected of municipal government.

[OpenYourEyesTulsa]

Great posts.  I wish all you guys were on city council.

Did anyone read Tom Adelson's ideas in the latest Urban Tulsa?  He made some good points about merging similar systems like IT department, HR, etc at the county level to save money for all the cities and more easily share resources.