Sunset clause is crucial

The Cape Girardeau City Council is set to take a final vote Tuesday on placing a quarter-cent sales tax on the April ballot to raise $2 million a year for equipment, facilities and personnel at the police and fire departments. It should also include a sunset provision that would end the tax in 10 years unless voters approve an extension.

The city has identified $20 million of expenses for the police and fire department. There are other items that could be added now but are prudently being left off to avoid an even bigger tax increase, and there certainly will be capital needs for those two departments in 2014.

Council members who are resisting the sunset provision are focusing on those future needs with too little regard for the ability of voters -- now and 10 years from now -- to make good decisions, provided the city keeps its word and accomplishes what it sets out to do.

Making a good case

Over the past two years, the need for more revenue to pay for essential city services has been made. A similar case was made eight years ago when voters approved the first Transportation Trust Fund to use revenue from a sales-tax increase to pay for major street improvements. That tax had a five-year sunset provision. Voters overwhelmingly approved a five-year extension. The results of the street program can be found all over the city, and the work continues.

Similarly, the city has put together a spending list for the next 10 years for the police and fire departments: fire trucks, police cars, building repairs, emergency equipment.

Without a sunset clause, the whole package is in jeopardy. Voters these days are in no mood for more taxes. Cape Girardeau's voters have demonstrated again and again that they are willing to support real needs. They have approved school bond issues. They have approved -- twice -- the street-program sales tax.

And Cape Girardeau's voters have shown they don't like any plan that includes nonessential spending or imposes a permanent tax.

Councilman Jay Purcell voted against putting the sales tax on the ballot because he believes the city can make more budget cuts. Councilwoman Marcia Ritter opposed a sunset provision on the proposed sales tax because she believes the city would have to make a huge cut in spending at the end of 10 years. Mayor Jay Knudtson, who favors a sunset clause, believes it would force the city to cut expenses over the life of the sales tax.

Generating future support

All of those viewpoints seem to ignore the fact that a good plan carried out in a productive way will generate future support for continuing the plan.

City spending already has been cut to the bone.

The city wouldn't face making drastic budget cuts when a tax sunsets if the tax has been used as promised.

And a sunset provision wouldn't force the city to cut expenses while the tax is in effect, because improving city services would be the basis for asking voters to make a choice based on circumstances 10 years in the future.

Those circumstances -- impossible to predict now -- might include a significant growth in the city's industrial and retail base, resulting in more tax revenue. It might include overall economic growth that would mean more money for the city. With those possibilities in mind, it's just as likely voters wouldn't need to extend the proposed sales tax at the end of 10 years as it is that they would.

Neither will voters now be anxious to approve a permanent tax knowing the city's financial situation might be significantly improved by 2014 -- lessening the need for continuing the tax.

If city officials believe future councils won't be able to make a case for extending the sales tax, if needed, 10 years from now, neither can they make the case now for the $20 million spending plan.