Humphreys County Rejects Wheel Tax, Increases Sales Tax to its Limit

Residents in Humphreys County overwhelmingly rejected a wheel tax, but narrowly said yes to increasing local sales tax yesterday.

With a nearly stagnant population and property values in decline, the rural county west of Nashville has been strapped for cash. Jessie Wallace is the County Executive. He says options for how to drum up enough money to cover the budget were pretty limited.

“There were just a few choices open to local governments. Certainly property tax increase was one of the options, and we haven’t had a tax increase in 17 years in Humphreys County,” he said.

This summer, though, the county passed a 41-cent increase in the property tax. But the Commission promised to back off that amount if residents voted in either the wheel tax or the sales tax increase. The sales tax increase passed by 71 votes.

Half of Tennessee counties have hit the sales tax ceiling allowable under state law. The Humphreys County Commission will meet Monday to decide how much it will decrease its property tax.

The cities of Waverly, New Johnsonville, and McEwen sponsored a newspaper ad against the tax increase.

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Three cities in Humphreys County are angry. A referendum passed yesterday means they’ll now have to surrender money to the county.

Yesterday, residents of Waverly, New Johnsonville, and McEwen weren’t allowed to vote on a referendum to raise the local sales tax. That’s because the cities had already individually raised the sales tax to its $2.75 maximum. With a county-wide sales tax increase, though, they’ll now have to fork over about $250,000 to the county school system, money the cities used to keep for themselves.

Director of Schools Jimmy Long says the county’s eight schools will be able to buy their own buses, patch roofs, and give some of the staff raises, but he understands why residents of Waverly, New Johnsonville, and McEwen are upset.

“The cities will be losing some money. There’s no doubt about that. And they’ll either have to cut, or come up with money from somewhere else, and I feel for them on that,” said Long.

David Collier is the Budget Chair for Waverly City. He says he isn’t sure how it will make up for the loss.

“There are some things that we can cut, but I don’t think we can cut our way out of this,” he said, “We’re going to have to find a revenue source.”

Collier says the city may consider a wheel or property tax to make up for the cuts. Waverly officials will meet Monday night to decide what to sacrifice in their budget. The city currently provides the whole county with feral animal pick-up and shelter services. Collier says that will likely be the first to go.