County sales tax proposal tabled

A proposed 1-cent Carroll County sales tax intended to provide additional funding for rural fire departments, emergency services and county roads will not go before voters in November.

District 2 Justice of the Peace Jack Deaton moved at the regular monthly meeting of the Carroll County Quorum Court on Tuesday, Aug. 18, to table the proposal after learning that approximately half the revenue generated by the countywide tax would be distributed to municipalities rather than remaining with county government.

The quorum court unanimously agreed to table the measure.

Deaton said he had expected the tax to generate approximately $6 million to $6.5 million annually and had promoted the proposal as a way to provide badly needed funding for rural fire departments, emergency services and county roads.

After the county hired a Little Rock law firm to research the proposal, however, Deaton said he learned that state law requires the revenue to be divided with municipalities based on population.

“Half of this is going to go to the cities,” Deaton said.

Deaton said that instead of having approximately $6.5 million available for county purposes, the county government’s share would be approximately $3.3 million.

Deaton said he could not continue promoting the tax to voters on the premise that all the revenue would be available for the purposes he outlined.

“The one thing I do not do is lie to people,” Deaton said. “I’ve never lied to people, and I’m not going to do it starting now.”

Deaton said he had been telling residents that passage of the tax would allow the county to address needs involving rural fire departments, emergency services and roads.

But after learning how the revenue must be distributed, he said, “now that’s pretty much a lie because the government doesn’t get half of that money.”

Deaton said there also was not enough time to resolve the issue before the deadline to place the tax on the November ballot.

He said the proposal could potentially return for a special election in March after county officials explore their options.

Deaton said one possibility would be negotiating agreements with cities to return some of their share of the revenue to the county, although he acknowledged that might be difficult.

“There’s a lot of options we need to look at,” he said.

Deaton, a retired EMT and fire chief with more than 35 years of emergency-service experience, said the need for additional fire-department funding remains.

He said some rural departments have aging equipment and poor ISO ratings, which can affect homeowners’ insurance premiums.

Several speakers during public comments agreed that rural fire departments need additional funding, although they differed on whether a countywide sales tax was the best solution.

One resident suggested a $75 fire-protection fee assessed against property rather than a sales tax, saying such a fee applied to 27,368 parcels would generate more than $2 million annually for the county’s nine fire departments.

Jim Wallace, the Democratic candidate for Carroll County judge in the November general election, told the court he has asked the county’s nine fire districts to complete surveys documenting their personnel, equipment and preparedness.

Wallace said the surveys could establish a 2026 baseline to determine what resources the departments have and measure future progress.

State Sen. Bryan King also addressed the court about a separate proposal that he said would return more state revenue to counties.

King said Carroll County generates significant sales-tax revenue because of tourism but has seen its percentage of state turnback funding decline.

King said his proposal would direct additional money to counties for basic infrastructure and potentially allow some of the money to be used for rural fire departments and senior centers.

Deaton said additional turnback money could help but would not provide enough to address all of the fire departments’ needs.

For now, he said, the sales-tax proposal needs more work before being put before voters.