Urbana Supports Sales Tax

Posted May 7th, 2008 at 01:55 PM by IlliniPundit
in

Unsurprising:

The Urbana school board passed a resolution Tuesday night calling for a 1 percent countywide sales tax to be put on the November ballot.

With its vote, 11 school districts in the county have now passed such a resolution. Those districts represent almost half of the county's school enrollment, said Jane Quinlan, superintendent of the regional office of education. State law provides that districts representing at least 51 percent of the county's school enrollment can place a tax question on the ballot by approving a resolution such as Urbana did.

A county policy committee will discuss the proposed sales tax at a meeting tonight.

The Urbana school board also passed a resolution Tuesday pledging to use a portion of the money it would receive if such a tax passes to abate property taxes. The resolution states that the district would use $1 million annually to pay off building bonds.

"It's the first step in moving away from a total reliance on property taxes," said Urbana school board President Mark Netter.

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On May 13th, 2008 at 02:31 PM, JohnBoy said:

Hey,how about a 50/50 split on the property tax relief? Any increase to the school district with this sales tax is going to be ONTOP of these overwhelming property taxes now collected.