Davie’s dilemma
Rowan voters who recently OK’d a quarter-cent increase in the sales tax will be interested to know Davie County is going to try the same thing. The Davie increase will be on the ballot on Feb. 2 ó all by itself ó and is aimed at funding schools.
February seems to have been the soonest the county could possibly hold the vote, but you have to wonder how many people will bother to vote when that’s the only issue on the ballot. Maybe that’s part of the county’s strategy.
Davie is about to build an early college and a new high school, which county officials describe as an auxiliary to the main high school campus. Commissioners voted 4-1 to put the sales tax increase on the ballot because they are looking for alternatives to raising the property tax as they take on these school projects. The quarter-cent increase is expected to raise more than $600,000 a year for Davie.
This is Davie’s way of coping with the dilemma virtually all counties find themselves in, trying to keep up with school needs without overburdening property-tax payers. The counties and the state are headed into a very difficult budget year. Davie is smart to stake itself out on the sales tax increase as soon as possible. If citizens are well-informed, they won’t feel as though the county was trying to slip something by them.