County asks for share of city sales tax

Allocating some of the proceeds from the half-cent sales tax to the county would allow all citizens in the area to benefit, the McCook City Council was told Monday night.

Red Willow County Commissioner Leigh Hoyt read from a prepared statement and asked the council to consider giving some of the revenue of the half cent tax the city is proposing to the county for road maintenance.

County roads are in need of improvement and two thirds of the gravel budget has already been used, Hoyt said. Splitting some of the tax revenue toward the county would be a fair distribution of the tax, where everyone would gain.

"All people who come to McCook will benefit," he said, citing school buses stuck on county roads six times in the past week and one bus from Indianola.

In addition, about 67 percent of valuations come from outside the city so sharing sales tax revenue would only be fair, he asserted.

Hoyt said City Manager Kurt Fritsch "is the best we've had in a long time," but that he came from a large urban area in Las Vegas where it's "every dog for himself" and cooperating with others may not be a high priority. But "out here in the sticks," cooperation between the city and county is imperative, he said. He wondered if the city truly wanted to work with the county as when the city proposed a new jail, it not include a 96-hour holding cell. This meant the county would still have to transport prisoners. He predicted that a new city public safety center would be built within 10 years if the half-cent tax was approved.

County commissioners met with Mayor Dennis Berry and Fritsch sometime in summer to discuss the possibility of sharing sales tax revenue but that the issue was never put on the council agenda.

He asked again for a spirit of cooperation between the city and county and concluded,"Let's all do this together so we can all share in the end."

None of the city council responded to Hoyt, and later in the meeting unanimously approved ballot questions that will ask city voters to continue the current one-cent city sales tax, along with adding a half-cent tax split between the city and economic development.

But at the end of the meeting, during council comments, Fritsch felt the need to reply to Hoyt's remarks although he stressed he was "not trying to pick a fight."

He disputed Hoyt's numbers concerning the valuations and said that out of $616 million in assessed valuations, less than half, at $290 million, was the city's portion. Property tax collected by the county compared to the city was nearly two to one, he stated.

Fritsch said that although he empathized with the county about the maintaining county roads, the impacts of the city and county balances out. He referred to the dairy that the city does not collect taxes from yet uses trucks on the city roads.

He also reminded the council that the county had a representative on the McCook Economic Devel-opment Corp. and any proceeds from the half-cent tax, if approved, would benefit the county as well.

"The benefits would go beyond borders," he said stated.