What’s next step without penny?

The state Legislature may have put the brakes on Monroe County’s quest to get approval for a one-cent additional sales tax to help it fund several hundred million dollars in remaining wastewater upgrades, particularly for the northern Lower Keys section from Lower Sugarloaf to Big Pine Key.

Some county officials had pinned their hopes on a possible extra penny in sales tax to offset costs for the system, estimated at $194 million.

County lobbyists had declared their intentions to put the penny sales tax on as an amendment to the bill that might extend the July 1, 2010 deadline for upgrading Keys wastewater at the last minute.

State Rep. Ron Saunders has said that the appetite for raising taxes, particularly in this pivotal election year, might not be very great, and could possibly jeopardize the authority for the one cent sales tax here.

But the Legislature will face a sales tax question of its own this session as House Bill 115 makes its way through the halls of Tallahassee. That bill adds a penny in sales tax to the state’s portion of revenue from goods and services sold, and would raise the overall tax rate in Monroe County to eight-and-a-half cents on the dollar.

If the Legislature gives Monroe County the authority the ask voters to approve another penny to pay for wastewater and storm water systems, approving that would raise local sales taxes to nine-and-a-half cents, the highest in the state.

If history is any indication, if state lawmakers have a choice to raise money at the state level by increasing sales taxes or allowing an individual county to raise money by that method, we know who loses that battle.

The state has become increasingly good in the last two decades at mandating programs that the counties have to pay for.

And it’s always the consumer that loses.

Tax revenues have steadily fallen since 2007, about a year after the current recession really started to be felt around the country. Every taxing authority, with the exception of the local mosquito control district, has had to tighten its belt and raise tax rates on property owners to maintain balanced budgets.

The taxpayer is just about over it.

Yes, Monroe County needs the money to complete the wastewater projects. But what it needs more is the extension being contemplated of the state deadline. Without that extension, property owners here will begin to get letters of non-compliance, with whatever penalty the state sees fit to impose, starting July 2.

If asking for an additional penny sales tax jeopardizes the extension, perhaps we can wait another year to ask that.

All we’re going to get anyway is the state’s blessing to ask the local voters if they want to self-impose another penny on sales tax. The changes that would pass in today’s fiscal climate are slim.

Our leadership saw this train wreck coming four years ago, yet no one had the political will to come to the voters and ask for a funding source that might be least painful we can come up with.

Now that our leaders have been forced to reach into their guts and come up with the political will, the state may have beaten them to the punch.

We hope the state won’t increase our sales tax. We hope we get the authority to ask our local voters to add a penny on ourselves, with a lot of that to be paid by our visitors, and we hope that the voters will choose the lesser of all evils.

But those hopes get dimmer with each passing day.

The current bill that would extend our deadline here also includes a provision for the state to give us $200 million—when it feels it can—to help us meet their unfunded mandate.

Let’s get those two in place first. Then let’s put our collective heads together and find a way to upgrade wastewater in the rest of the county that doesn’t include adding a penny we may never get, especially is the state takes an extra one for itself.

We still have the option to get voters to extend the existing one-penny infrastructure sales tax that will sunset in 2018. With that, we could borrow a little money, then borrow a little against our operating funds, and maybe come out on the other end with a wastewater system that does the job and a bite out of our wallets we can all live with.

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