In order to understand the title, you may need to re-read (or just read for the first time, if you are one of the few people on earth who does not check our blog every day) my post from yesterday on this issue. The Kansas City Star reports that the Clay County Commission has elected to enact a tax rate of 24 cents per hundred dollars in order to fulfill the judicial order from the recent lawsuit. That rate has been set to meet the requirements of the judicial order, but to raise no more money than that. Well, it might be a little more than that, but not very much in the scheme of things for a fairly large county like Clay — so my point stands.
The key part of this choice is that Clay County will continue to rely on sales taxes to fund county services, except for the transportation issues that the lawsuit dealt with. The Clay County Commission deserves tremendous credit for making smart and responsible financial decisions for the people of Clay County. I think its decision to rely on the sales tax should be given strong consideration by other counties similar to Clay, such as St. Charles.
