McMinnville officials have accepted a resolution to link the city’s local option sales tax recovered from the county to capital improvement projects in the city.A question by Vice Mayor Ben Newman led to a standoff between other board members about the need for a rainy day fund.“I’ve been going over this trying to think about what happens if we commit all of this sales tax recovery to these issues,” said Newman. “Do we want to commit all of it or do we want to put some toward what may be called a rainy day fund?”Linking the money recovered annually to only items considered to be capital improvement projects came out of the city’s Finance Committee, of which Newman is a member with Aldermen Ken Smith and Mike Neal.Newman says he has had some time to think about the measure and wants to consider other future needs of the city, such as the reduction of property taxes for city residents when the county is expected to increase property taxes.“We know the county will have to increase their land taxes because of this,” Newman said. “As they give us back money each year, eventually they will have recoup that somewhere.
Resolution accepted for sales tax to be used