By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
While Jacksonville is pleased to see a solid up tick in tax collections, Sherwood is looking to add another tax to its arsenal.
Jacksonville’s Advertising and Promotion Commission received news Monday night of more taxes coming into its coffers. Next Monday, Sherwood’s city council will vote to set a special election to raise its sales tax one cent for two years to fund a new library, an animal shelter and roadwork.
Sherwood also plans to vote on new ward boundaries at its Monday night meeting.
Cheryl Erkel, Jacksonville’s newly appointed finance director, told the advertising and promotion commission that Jacksonville’s restaurants had $3.36 million in taxable receipts for March, the second best month in the four-year history of the commission’s prepared food tax. The best month ever was December 2008 when restaurants had more than $3.53 million in taxable receipts. Restaurants are taxed 2 percent.
Hotels, which the commission also taxes at a two-percent rate, showed a solid increase in March too. Hotel receipts for the first three months of this year are outpacing last year by about 20 percent, but still about that same percentage behind 2009. Taxable hotel receipts in March hit $259,000 compared to $218,000 in March 2010.
In all, those figures equated to $5,702 in taxes from city hotels and $73,087 from the restaurants.
About half of all taxes coming in to the commission go to the parks and recreation department. The rest is used to fund various projects and activities that promote Jacksonville and brings visitors to the city.
The Sherwood council was set to tackle plans to increase its sales tax at the April meeting when tornadoes, high winds, rain and lightning hit the area.
Aldermen will discuss it again Monday.
The proposed ordinance is for a temporary one-cent sales and use tax to last two years.
The tax will be used to acquire land and construct a new library facility, construct and equip an animal services facility, either in its current or in a new location, and any leftover funds will be used for street repair and improvement.
The council can recommend the tax increase, but it can only be approved by the voters. So after aldermen approve the idea, they must then vote to set a special election.
With the annexation of Gravel Ridge and the latest census numbers showing the city has grown by about 8,000 in the past 10 years, the number of residents living in each ward has changed drastically and, by law, adjustments will have to be made.
City wards can’t have more than a five percent difference in population. But right now Sherwood wards range from 5,500 to 9,200.
“Even before we annexed Gravel Ridge, our growth was to the north,” Mayor Virginia Hillman explained, greatly skewing the city’s wards.
She said cities could make boundary changes only after a census. “Even though it was our intention to keep Gravel Ridge together in one ward, when the community was annexed, we had to follow the law, which said we could only extend boundaries,” Hillman said. “So that meant Gravel Ridge was split. The portion to the west of Hwy. 107 went into Ward 1 and the portion to the east went to Ward 2.”
But a new plan would put all of Gravel Ridge into Ward 4.
Under the proposal the mayor plans to bring to the council, all of Gravel Ridge becomes Ward 4 and extends into the center of town. The population count will be 7,661 and it will be the largest of the wards.
Ward 2 will still take in the western side of the city, but will lose its Gravel Ridge portion and part of its southern border to Ward 3. It will contain 7,125 residents and be the city’s smallest ward.
Ward 3 shifts to the east and south but will have 7,274 residents and Ward 1 still takes in the eastern side below Gravel Ridge. It will have 7,386 residents.
There is no deadline for the city to revamp its ward boundaries, but the mayor said the sooner the better to give residents the chance to see what ward they are in and if they want to run for the council.
