The Williamson County Election Commission set the date for a county-wide vote on whether or not to raise the sales tax by a half-percent in order to help fund the school system.
Williamson, Inc. has set a date for leaders to plead their case to the public, for why to vote yes.
County Mayor Rogers Anderson and Williamson County Schools Superintendent Dr. Mike Looney will host a town hall discussion Friday, January 19 at Columbia State Community College in their Community Room in Building A.
The discussion will take place from 7:30 – 8:30 a.m.
Polling day is: Tuesday, February 6, 2018. You can find where your voting precinct here or on your voter registration card. If you are not registered to vote you must register by January 8 to be eligible for this referendum. Info on registering can be found here.
Early voting will run from January 17 through February 1. The times and locations of early voting have not yet been determined. One definite location for early voting will be the county administrative building at 1320 West Main Street in Franklin, with hours not yet set; though in previous early voting hours have been 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Several satellite early voting locations are in the process of being confirmed, according to Chad Gray, the county administrator of elections.
What Will The Vote Decide?
In November the County Commission unanimously approved holding a special referendum on whether or not to raise the sales tax in the county to help fund new school construction.
A yes-vote is to raise the total sales tax from 9.25 to 9.75 percent across the county. Their governments approved the tax increase in succession over the summer. Fairvew, already at the maximum state-allowed rate of 9.75 percent, could not participate. However, it agreed to give its portion of its adequate facilities tax, collected by the county, for the next decade. That is not being decided by vote.
The municipal governments, in their votes, agreed to split the increase fifty-fifty with the school system for three years. The revenue raised will go toward rural and general school debt service, another state law for its use. The tax will raise an estimated $60 million – $70 million total. In the 2017 county budget, just shy of $63 million went to school debt service alone. This will free up other revenue for capital expenditures like buying land for and building schools.
After three years, the money raised by full half-percent will begin to revert back to the five municipalities that adopted the tax– the tax will not go back down to 9.25 percent.
Williamson County Schools expects to add some 20,000 students in the next decade, and will need to build at least 17 new schools at a price of up to $500 million to accommodate that growth. The very-nearly 40,000 students enrolled in the district this year already are taxing the system’s capacity— some 9 schools are at or above capacity and 7 more are getting close.
Why is it so difficult to see that the issues is over building and that our commissioners have not yet met a developer they did not like. Dr. Looney should be more involved with the county to make sure that the growth in the county does not exceed his ability to provide the excellent school system everybody is moving here for.