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Rhea County school board pushes sales tax hike

By: Cliff Hightower
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Bill Graham

DAYTON, Tenn. — Rhea County commissioners need to be more active if a half-cent sales tax increase has any chance of passing in next week’s election, the chairman of the commission’s education committee said Wednesday.

Local school board members have been going to civic clubs and handing out information packets about why a sales tax is needed, officials said. Commissioner Bill Hollin, chairman of the education committee, said he’s disappointed in the inaction of fellow commissioners.

“I think we need to be doing something,” Mr. Hollin said Wednesday. “It’s no use for one to do something and the others to do nothing.”

Commission Chairman Terry Broyles could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The tax increase would help pay for expansions at Rhea County High School and Rhea Central Elementary. The increase to 2.75 percent would bring in $650,000 to $700,000 a year, officials said.

Voters defeated the same measure in the February presidential primary by 91 votes out of 5,335 cast.

School board member Bill Graham is chairman of the sales tax committee formed by commissioners and school board members.

He said Wednesday that school board members have gone to public meetings to talk about projections for increased enrollment over the next five years. The committee will go to the Dayton Rotary Club on Friday, he said.

“The school board is aggressively attacking,” Mr. Graham said.

County Executive Billy Ray Patton said he knew of no formal plans by the county commission to persuade voters. Action has been on an individual level, he said.

“They are trying to talk it up as much as they can in their respective districts,” he said.

Dayton resident Wilma Cunningham said she and her husband, Raymond, voted early this week. She said they live on a fixed income and can’t afford to pay more taxes, so they voted against the increase.

“I didn’t even know there was a vote on a tax until we went up there and voted,” she said.

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