Payroll tax gets the axe…
in a special meeting of the fiscal court yesterday morning, 5-15-2007, the proposed %1 county payroll tax failed to pass. the motion was made by magistrate frankie spencer, and it found no second amongst the other magistrates. judge tim conley then seconded the motion, and it got a reading. magistrates potter, cantrell, and riggsby all voted “nay”, with only spencer and conley voting in favor.
unless a solution can be found by june 10, county government control will fall into the hands of the State. i’m not sure exactly WHAT the solution might end up being, but it seems like if the People’s Choice had given the magistrates a little more time to study on it, and maybe if he’d been willing to actually let them LOOK at the county budget in order to see where it could be trimmed, an acceptable solution might have been reached. as it stands, this payroll tax would be paid by about 3,500 out of Morgan County’s 14,500-ish citizens would be paying the payroll tax. that doesn’t seem quite fair to only tax SOME folks, when all will benefit from the money.
additionally, it is rumored that LVRECC and Mountain Telephone have stated that they will most certainly NOT be paying the tax.
Judge Conley seems to be under the impression that if the State takes over County Government functions that the Magistrates will be stripped of their positions, but I’m not so sure that is the case. maybe one of our more informed readers can let us know what the protocol is??
this will certainly get a lot more interesting in the coming weeks!!