Key points:
- Outgoing Cherokee County commissioners are asking voters to approve a $600,000 tax increase, an amount equivalent to a property tax increase of 1.5 cents per hundred dollars of value.
- County voters already rejected all three county commissioners who proposed the tax hike, but those lame-duck commissioners have since committed nearly $10 million to expand and renovate the courthouse.
- Outgoing commissioners have justified the tax simply as “another way to generate revenue.”
- Whomever voters choose as their new county commissioners November 2 should have the opportunity to demonstrate their fiscal responsibility without an additional $600,000 in taxes on Cherokee County residents and businesses.
- 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.
- Cherokee County voters should think twice before harming small employers with a tax increase.
