Key points:
- Alamance County commissioners are asking county voters to approve a $2.4 million tax increase at a time of high unemployment. This amount is equal to a property tax increase of 1.9 cents per hundred dollars of value.
- The three commissioners who supported the tax hike rejected a public hearing on the referendum.
- Payment on debt has grown faster since 2006 than any area of government operations except education.
- County commissioners have not announced what they would do with the money nor have they promised to make the new tax revenue-neutral by reducing the property tax rate.
- Regardless, all new revenue would go into the general fund and could be spent by commissioners for any legal purpose.
- Since the special county taxing authority was established by the legislature in 2007, voters have turned down 68 of 85 requests for tax increases, sending the message that county commissioners must be more responsible stewards of taxpayers’ hard-earned money before voters will entrust them with tax increases.
- Alamance County voters should think twice before harming small employers with a tax increase.
