After last week’s meeting of the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Trustees, those following the fate of the county’s 2-percent restaurant tax were left wondering what’s next.
The answer to that question appears it’s back to square one, with the county and city divided on what each body will present to the legislature.
The current tax, which funds the CVB, expires on June 30. At the end of March, a joint proposal from the Columbus City Council and the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors to extend the tax died in the Mississippi Legislature after Rep. Jeff Smith (R-Columbus) and Rep. Gary Chism (R-Columbus) amended the bill to reinstate a $325,000 threshold that has been removed from the version approved unanimously by the city and county.
Sen. Chuck Younger (R-Columbus) refused to accept the change and the bill died in conference committee as the 2018 legislative session ended.
Last week, the CVB sought to negotiate an agreement from Smith and Younger, both of whom said they would accept a new version of the bill with a $100,000 floor — a compromise both the city and county must approve.
The current tax requires only restaurants/businesses with gross food sales of $325,000 or more to collect the tax. The joint resolution from the city and county made the tax applicable to all restaurants/businesses regardless of annual sales. The compromise promoted by the CVB would require only restaurants/businesses with annual gross food sales of $100,000 to collect the tax.
While Columbus Mayor Robert Smith said he would recommend approving a resolution with the $100,000 floor at Tuesday’s city council meeting, Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Harry Sanders said he will recommend to his board no changes to its last resolution.
“What I’m going to recommend Monday is that we reaffirm the resolution that we already have in Jackson,” Sanders said. “My contention is that there is no reason to change it.”
The mayor, meanwhile, said he will recommend the city council pass a new resolution with the $100,00 floor that both Rep. Smith and Younger agreed on during the CVB meeting.
“My suggestion to the council is that if the people down there who are making the final decision say it has to be a $100,000 floor, it would be foolish to send them something different,” Mayor Smith said. “That’s what happened last time: They wouldn’t accept a bill without a floor. So to send that to them again would be a waste of time if it’s not going to pass.”
Possibility of a special session
Rep. Smith had said there is a possibility a bill could be passed to extend the tax during a special legislative session to address the state’s road/bridge crisis. If the tax was added to that agenda, no voter referendum would have to be held since the action would qualify as an extension of the existing tax.
But the impasse between the leadership in Jackson is making the likelihood of a special session increasingly doubtful.
“The next step would be resolutions from the city and county on the concept of having another tax with a $100,000 threshold,” Rep. Smith said. “We would present that as soon as we can, whether in a special session or in January, but there will be no special session until the Lt. Gov. and Speaker can reach an agreement on an (infrastructure) bill.”
If there is no special session, or if the resolution isn’t passed during the session, the resolution can be sent back to the Legislature next January. In that case, it would qualify as a new tax, and would have to be approved by 60 percent of Lowndes County voters.
“If we can’t take it up until January, we’ll have to have a referendum by the voters after the legislation is passed,” Rep. Smith said.
All that would be moot if the city and county cannot agree on a joint resolution for the tax, however.
“We’d be back to where we started, I guess,” Sanders said. “What we were told all along is that the city and county had to agree on the same resolution, that if we sent two separate resolutions down to Jackson, they would throw out both of them. It looks like we’re in the same spot again, with the county and city not agreeing.
“What I don’t understand is why the city would change a resolution that they voted unanimously for,” he added. “Both the county and the city made it clear that we didn’t want a floor. What’s changed? My opinion is we should stick with what we agreed on and expect the people in Jackson to support that.”
The supervisors meet the day before the city council, but the mayor said whatever action the board takes will not influence his recommendation.
“Let the county do what the county wants to do,” Mayor Smith said. “My position is that the city should send a resolution that can pass. In my mind, the only way to do that is send down a resolution that (the legislators) have agreed they will support.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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