Chickasaw City Council votes to increase sales tax by half-cent

Published: Tuesday, November 09, 2010, 8:47 PM ??? Updated: Tuesday, November 09, 2010, 8:48 PM

CHICKASAW, Alabama -- The Chickasaw City Council voted tonight to raise sales tax by a half-cent amid outcries from residents that the tax could cripple the city.

"Have you taken into consideration what this tax increase is going to do?" resident Ray Griffith asked the council before the group unanimously approved the tax. "You’re going to kill any new businesses that wanted to come here. People are going to leave. People won’t want to live here."

Mayor Byron Pittman responded that the tax "was a last resort," given a budget shortfall of about $238,000. The half-cent tax increase will cost each resident about $5 more a year, he said, and bring in a projected $150,000 by the end of the year.

"I, as a resident, would rather pay that than lose a policeman," Pittman said.

The remaining deficit, about $80,000, will be recouped in budget cuts, said Councilman Adam Bourne, who chairs the city’s finance committee.

"We’re trying to grow the city and make it better and preserve our core city services," Bourne said during the meeting. "We have to be responsible. We can’t make every decision on what would be politically popular."

The council voted for the half-cent tax increase after defeating a proposed 1-cent tax increase, which would have brought the city’s total sales tax to 10.5 cents, higher than the total sales tax in the city of Mobile.

The approval of the half-cent increase brings the total sales tax in Chickasaw to 10 cents.

The council also unanimously approved the city’s $4.15 million budget tonight, which included cuts to the city’s street-cleaning services and a reduction of the lights that will illuminate Chickasaw’s streets, Bourne said.

Council members also anticipate a reduction in expenses for officers’ uniforms and computer software.

"We had one- time expenses this year that we don’t anticipate for next year," Bourne said.

The budget preserved the city’s workforce, Bourne said.

The vote comes on the heels of the city’s announcement that it plans to break from the Mobile County Public School System.

In doing so, Chickasaw would take ownership of the three school buildings within its limits — Hamilton Elementary, the Chickasaw School of Mathematics and Science and the former Chickasaw School of Mathematics and Science, which is temporarily serving as an alternative school.

Pittman said the tax increase had nothing to do with the city’s plans to split from the school system.

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