Perry County Commission seeks voter approval to extend road and bridge sales tax

The Perry County Commission wants voters on Tuesday to extend a 3/8th-cent, road and bridge, capital-improvement sales tax for another nine years.

Voters first approved the tax in 2004 and extended it for another six years in 2010.

County officials said the sales tax has fueled numerous road and bridge improvements over the years. Funds generated by the tax are used to construct, maintain and upgrade roads and bridges.

County commissioners said the funding is vital in a county that has more than 480 miles of roads and more than 275 bridges.

The sales-tax revenue has allowed the county to pave more than 135 miles of the county's most traveled roadways and replace a number of bridges, commissioners said.

The tax also has funded upkeep of drainage ditches, mowing along rights of way and installation of road signs.

"This is not a new tax," said District 1 Associate Commissioner Patrick Heaps.

Voters are being asked to keep the existing tax, he said.

County roads and bridges would suffer without the tax, officials said.

The average bridge in Perry County is more than 50 years old. Without continued tax money, many of the county's already paved roads would deteriorate. Emergency road repairs would put a strain on the county budget, commissioners said.

Since its inception, the tax has generated about $900,000 annually in added funding for roads and bridges. Before 2005, the year the tax first was collected, road and bridge funding depended on property tax revenue and rarely reached $1.5 million a year, officials said.

Since 2013, Perry County government has made an annual investment of close to $2.9 million to maintain and improve roads and bridges, commissioners pointed out.

The tax now is the primary source of funding for the county's road and bridge department, officials said.

But Heaps stressed none of the sales-tax money goes for highway department salaries. All the tax money goes to fund road and bridge capital improvements.

Heaps and Presiding Commissioner Carl Leuckel said according to data from the Missouri Department of Revenue, visitors pay more than 51 percent of sales taxes in Perry County.

"For every road and bridge sales tax dollar paid by Perry County citizens, more than $2 are invested in county infrastructure," Leuckel said.

He added, "The average cost per family for the Perry County road and bridge capital improvement tax is $4.29 per month."

County Clerk Jared Kutz said the monthly tax burden is "less than the cost of a value meal."

Commissioners said they decided to ask voters to extend the tax for nine rather than six years to save on election expenses.

The cost of a countywide election averages $20,000, Heaps said.

Fewer elections means less cost to the county government, allowing the savings to be put toward infrastructure improvements, he added.

If voters extend the tax, the commission has promised to use some of the tax dollars to overlay previously paved roads, repair and replace more bridges, improve visibility along county roadways and develop a 10-year plan for improvements. Money also would be spent on grading and maintaining existing gravel roads, commissioners said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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