Orange county voters reject tax increase

Residents voted against a quarter-cent sales tax increase slated to annually bring $2.3 million into county coffers.

The increase failed by slightly more than 1,000 votes.

“I guess I just have to say I’m very disappointed, and I don’t know what it means yet, but I am concerned because some of the things we were going to do with the revenue are going to be very hard to accomplish,” said Bernadette Pelissier, vice chairwoman of the Board of Orange County Commissioners.

County officials have resisted increasing property taxes as their budget shrinks.

To make up for the losses, commissioners passed a resolution to equally split 85 percent of the funds from the proposed increase between school improvements and economic development. The other 15 percent would have been shared by emergency medical services and the county library.

“We worked real hard on it,” said Aaron Nelson, CEO of the Chapel Hill-Carborro Chamber of Commerce and a supporter of the increase. “It was a good coalition, but this is a tough time to talk about tax increases. We knew that going in.”

Without the funds, the county will have to delay many capital improvement projects.

“It’s unfortunate that Orange County voters did not choose to pass this tax,” Nelson said. “The funds raised would have gone to some very important things in Orange County.”

The county launched a wide education campaign to get the referendum passed to diversify the tax base. But Pelissier said the county didn’t have the time it needed to fully inform the public.

“We really have to understand what the concerns of the public were,” she said.

The state also authorized counties to hold a referendum for a half-cent sales tax increase to fund public transit improvements, including a regional light-rail system and improvements to the bus system.

Commissioners were waiting for the results from the quarter-cent increase to gauge how receptive voters would be to the half-cent increase, said County Commissioner Barry Jacobs.

“If EMS, libraries, schools and economic development are not persuasive, then the other would have problems,” Jacobs said.

The money allocated to economic development would have encouraged companies to come and stay in the county and stimulated those already here, said Brad Broadwell, director of the county economic development office.

“The opportunities that currently come into the RTP — we will not be able to compete for those opportunities in those new growth businesses if we do not have the resources,” Broadwell said.

Donna Coffey, vice chairwoman of the Orange County Schools Board of Education, said most schools in the district are 35-to-40 years old and need facility renovations and new technology.

Without the sales tax, renovations will take much longer.

“If there’s not enough money, to go around it would mean we have to prioritize,” Coffey said. “Emergency-type renovations would happen first.”

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