Highland superintendent ‘not shocked’ by failure of sales tax vote
Madison County voters rejected a proposed sales tax increases for schools on Tuesday.
The 1-cent sales tax increase would have generated new revenue for schools to use toward their facilities or debt from previous work.
Tuesday was the second time Madison County voters had rejected the tax referendum. In 2011, the proposal failed by a more than 4-to-1 margin. This time around, it was a difference of just 259 votes.
With all precincts reporting, unofficial results were:
▪ Yes: 21,846 votes
▪ No: 22,105 votes
If the measure had passed, it would have been worth about $1.6 million per year to the Highland School District to build new facilities, buy land, repair existing facilities, technology infrastructure, or purchase durable equipment (non-movable items) or retire existing debt incurred for such purposes.
Prior to the election, the Highland School Board had passed a resolution saying it would use half the money to abate property taxes currently levied to pay off life/health/safety bonds.
“I am not shocked it didn’t pass, but disappointed that we will not be able to address some real issues with our facilities,” said Highland Superintendent Mike Sutton. “Also, we were hopeful that we could decrease the local property tax rate with 50 percent of the revenue. It would have been a win-win for our community and schools.”
St. Clair County voters saw the same school facilities tax proposal for the first time on Tuesday’s ballot. It failed there by more than 5,000 votes.
However, many surrounding counties have said yes to the idea. In Montgomery County, voters approved the school facilities tax 3,144 to 2,951 Tuesday after having rejected it once prior. Bond, Jersey and Macoupin counties have previously passed referendums to collect the tax. Clinton County voters have never taken up the question.
This story was originally published April 5, 2017 at 12:18 PM with the headline "Highland superintendent ‘not shocked’ by failure of sales tax vote."