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Public Safety Tax heads to ballot

Posted August 12, 2016 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Staff Writer

Randolph County voters may have a difficult decision in November - approve a tax or face the potential loss of services through county staff cuts.

During their meeting last Friday, the Randolph County Board of Commissioners approved putting a new "Public Safety Tax" on the November ballot as a way to help make up for the loss of the sales tax revenue caused by the shutdown of Unit 1 at the coal-fired Baldwin Energy Complex.

The tax would add an additional 75 cents in sales tax to every $100 of tangible personal property bought at retail. It would not apply to grocery store food sales, prescription and nonprescription medication, drugs, medical appliances and insulin, urine testing materials and syringes and needles used by diabetics.

Sales of alcoholic beverages, soft drinks and food that has been prepared for immediate consumption (I.E. restaurants) would be taxed. If approved by voters, the tax would take effect January 1, 2017.

"We had a good, long discussion on (the public safety tax) and we don't make this lightly," said Board Chairman Marc Kiehna.

Unit 1 at Baldwin is scheduled to go offline on Oct. 17, resulting in the immediate loss of 60 jobs. Unit 3 at the plant is anticipated to go offline in March 2017.

Dynegy Midwest Generation - which owns the Baldwin plant - has previously stated that 123 jobs could be affected by the shutdowns.

"This is to replace the tax revenue lost by the Baldwin power plant," said Commissioner Ronnie White. "We have for years been depending on this revenue from coal and now, it's not going to be there any more and it's going from bad to worse."

During the board's July 29 meeting, Treasurer Justin Jeffers painted a grim picture of the county's finances, with sales tax receipts down $700,000 from the previous year.

The tax receipts are what fills the county's general fund. Last year at the end of July, the county's general fund had $527,895.23.

This year, it only had $7,898.40 - a loss of $519,996.83.

Kiehna noted that the tax was a collaborative decision among the county's officeholders and is a way to avoid "severely crippling" the sheriff's office.

Chief Deputy Jarrod Peters said his agency had 13 deputies in 2012 and is down to 10 now, with seven to patrol the 597 square miles of the county.

The tax would help pay for liability insurance, the sheriff's office dispatch and other law enforcement-related items.

"As we all know, it's a huge liability to have one guy in an office dealing with the people we deal with," Peters said.

Peters said if the tax isn't approved, the job cuts could affect response times to calls for service and even jeopardize the contract his office has with the U.S. Marshals to house federal inmates at Randolph County Jail.

That contract nets the county a profit of $54 per day per federal inmate for a maximum of 10 inmates. Peters said there are currently three federal inmates in the jail.

He also reported that his agency has dipped into its drug fund for equipment expenses that would normally come out of the general fund.

"It's an unfortunate situation," Peters said. "It's out of our hands right now."

Kiehna was asked how many staff positions could be affected if the tax isn't approved.

"I can't give you a number at this time," he said. "We have to get our budget in line."

Kiehna further noted that it was a little more complex situation than "saying we'd lay off 20 people or a certain amount."

Commissioner David Holder said the county has 15 less employees than it did six years ago and those positions were never replaced.

Circuit Clerk Sherry Johnson later added that she didn't think layoffs would be enough to close the budget hole.

"We need to get something passed here," she said.

Kiehna said that the commissioners plan to meet with leadership of the three unions - Fraternal Order of Police, Local 399 of the International Union of Operating Engineers and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) - to "discuss the future."

"We will ask support from all of our unions," Kiehna said.

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