Gov. Bill Haslam talking to reporters outside War Memorial Auditorium

Governor Bill Haslam says he’s going to ask that the sales tax on food be cut by slightly more than he proposed earlier this year. The administration has discovered many cash registers can only be set in quarter-percent increments.

The sales tax on food is at 5.5 percent right now. The original plan called for 5.3 percent next year. But now Haslam says it will be easier on retailers to cut the tax to 5.25.

“Quite frankly, we just felt like if we were going to move it, we might as well do more now rather than later.”

Ultimately, Haslam wants the sales tax on food dropped all the way to 5 percent over the next two years.

The move will cost the state more than $3 million this year. It’s part of Haslam’s proposal for how to spend excess tax revenue. His suggestions also include restoring $5 million for unemployment offices across the state and a million dollars for land acquisition around Radnor Lake.

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The Haslam Administration has proposed to restore $100 million in cuts:

– $4 million to increase reimbursements to local jails from $35 to $37 a day
– $1.4 million for Mental Health peer support centers
– $1 million for family support services with the Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
– $300,000 for maintenance of the West Tennessee River Basin Authority
– $3 million to fund family resource centers
– $3.9 million to fund Healthy Start and Child Health and Development programs
– $250,000 for child advocacy centers
– $250,000 to support the Amachi mentoring program for children of inmates through Big Brothers Big Sisters
– $375,000 to fund a poison control center
– $5 million for Tennessee career centers with recurring money instead of one-time funds
– $122,000 to fund legislation that requires unemployment recipients to verify their job search efforts
– $115,500 to fund an online system to send businesses unemployment insurance notices electronically
– $1 million for land acquisition and maintenance efforts at Radnor Lake state park