Laramie County Commissioner: Voters To Decide Wants vs Needs
Laramie County Commissioner Keith "Buck" Holmes says that while he supports all of the items being proposed for sixth-penny sales tax funding, the voters will have to decide for themselves what is really needed, as opposed to what may simply be wanted.
A total of about $120 million in proposed projects will go before Laramie County voters on May 2. Early voting for the special election will start on March 23.
Most of the projects are grouped together in packages totaling $10 million to $12 million. Holmes says that while some of the projects proposed for funding "may not be my needs, they may be somebody else's needs."
He says in the end that is something every voter will have to decide for themselves.
Holmes says it will probably take about 6 years to collect the needed money for the projects through the sales tax. He says the county was typically collecting about $1.7 or 1.8 million per month through the tax over most of 2016.
He says the collections have been as low as $1.4 million, adding he thinks they could go as high as $2 million per month when the oil industry picks up steam.
But he says the county will probably use bonds to get the money up front to begin work on the projects so that construction delays can be avoided. The sales tax money collected would then be used to pay off the bonds.