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Continue Penny for Pinellas, county urges
By LESTER R. DAILEY
| Article published on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007 |
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CLEARWATER – Physically, Clearwater City Hall and the office of County Administrator Steve Spratt are only a block apart. But ideologically, they sometimes seem miles apart.
Recently, however, Spratt and the City Council joined forces to urge Clearwater voters to vote for the extension of the Penny for Pinellas sales tax surcharge for another 10 years.
“I’m not a politician but I have a campaign, and this is it,” Spratt said at the council’s Jan. 18 meeting. “It’s very important for the cities and the county to show strong solidarity on this program ... The public support (for extending the tax) is very strong. Over 60 percent of the people we’ve talked to would support this measure.”
Penny for Pinellas is a one-cent-per-dollar tax on top of the 6 percent state sales tax. It is levied on the first $5,000 of the price of most merchandise, with essentials like food and medicine exempted. State law allows counties, at their option, to enact such sales tax surcharges.
The original Penny took effect at the beginning of 1990. Penny II extended it from 2000 to 2010. In March, Pinellas voters will decide whether to extend the tax to 2020 via Penny III or let it expire.
One of Spratt’s strongest arguments for extending the tax is that more than one-third of it is paid by tourists. Without Penny, Spratt estimated, the average Pinellas homeowner would pay $140 a year more in property tax.
Penny funds can only be used for capital improvements to the infrastructure. They cannot be used for such recurring costs as salaries or maintenance.
Spratt played a video asking viewers to imagine a Pinellas County without such Penny-funded amenities as the Bayside Bridge, the Pinellas Trail, parks, better roads, improved emergency services, nature preserves and open spaces. He added that the county has spent millions of its Penny dollars within Clearwater, on such things as drainage projects and improvements to Drew Street and Keene and Sunset Point roads.
If Penny is extended to 2020, Spratt said, the money would be used to provide enough hurricane shelter spaces for everyone who needs them, improve government services and promote employment.
If passed, Penny III would bring in nearly $2 billion over 10 years. Ten percent of that would be taken off the top for the criminal courts and county jail. The county would get 52 percent of the remainder, and the cities would divide 38 percent.
Spratt said that $220 million will be needed to expand the county jail, which has 1,300 more inmates than it is authorized to hold. He added that the judiciary decides who goes to jail and who gets out, and he has no say in it.
“We’ve got to increase the (jail’s) capacity to keep the folks who should be in jail,” he said.
“That’s something that benefits the whole community,” Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard said in agreement. “Unfortunately, all areas of the county use that facility.”
Correction: The sentence, “It is levied on the first $50 of the price of most merchandise, with essentials like food and medicine exempted.” was changed to read “It is levied on the first $5,000 of the price of most merchandise, with essentials like food and medicine exempted.”
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Article published on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007
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