Counties May Get Quarter of Alcohol Tax, But House State Affairs Nixes County Sales Tax

1. Sam2 2016-01-24 09:44

   Nice work
2. Tim 2016-01-24 13:59

   Every time somebody brings up sales tax of any kind I have to ask, what about the $600 million the state gives away every year, why won’t they tap into that?
3. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-01-24 15:31

   Nobody wants to gore those oxen, Tim. If those special interests were powerful enough to get those exemptions written into law in the first place, they are likely powerful enough to raise holy heck for legislators daring to revisit those exemptions now.
4. Richard Schriever 2016-01-24 16:10

   Because of course – operating costs for counties have NOTHING MUCH TO DO with it’s population size – OR geographical size – right?
5. Tim 2016-01-24 16:28

   So Cory, the answer is the most regressive we can have, lay it on the poor again. Aren’t average people in this state paying enough of the tab now? Just sayin.
6. Paul Seamans 2016-01-24 17:08

   I see that Mike Verchio has suggested an income tax to fund schools, property tax to fund local government, and sales tax to fund state government. “I Like Mike”.
7. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-01-24 22:01

   Richard, do you know if there is a table that shows all counties’ operating budgets? I’d love to line those numbers up alongside population and taxable sales to see the exact correlation.

   Tim, you do well to remind us that we are talking about more regressive tax. In that regard, we could say that House State Affairs spared us more bad tax. But they didn’t do so out of regard for good tax policy and resistance to regressivity. Rep. Klumb did so out of an apparent misunderstanding of policy and economics. What non-regressive tax bases are available to counties?
8. Richard Schriever 2016-01-24 22:49

   Corey,

   You may be able to get that information from the US Census Bureau (Department of Commerce). They have a sort of generalized, state by state breakdown of revenues and expenditures at the county level here; http://www.census.gov/govs/local/ . I assume they have underlying data from individual counties this is based on, or at least know who in the state to ask for it.
9. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-01-25 07:05

   Interesting: according to data that the Department of Legislative Audit presented to Rep. Klumb and the County Government Interim Committee last summer, over 70% of county general fund expenditures go toward carrying out activities mandated by state law. There lies the justification for the state at least authorizing counties to levy taxes, if not provide that funding from the state level itself.

   Ah! And Exhibit C in this DLA document has the top-line budget figures for 64 counties. The most instructive figure may be per capita valuation, which varies from $2,400 in Oglala Lakota and $49,000 in Bennett to $338,000 in Hyde and $541,000 in Sully. In our most populous counties, per capita valuation is $64K in Minnehaha, $69K in Pennington, $84 in Lincoln, and $88K in Brown. The statewide average per capita valuation is $89K.

   Also instructive is property tax revenue per capita. Oglala Lakota and Sully again define the range, $12 to $1,524 (there’d better be some awfully nice roads around Onida!), but the next placers are, at the bottom, Buffalo ($189) and Lincoln ($192) and at the top, Harding ($990) and Miner ($1,114). Minn/Penn/Brown go $220, $346, $384. Statewide average is $335.

   Generally, bigger counties, smaller tax burden per person.
10. Heckifino 2016-01-25 08:31

    Isn’t it time to consolidate counties? Just seems to me that having only 5 or 6K residents in a county is silly. Wouldn’t a consolidation make sense financially? What are the pro’s and cons agains such change?
11. M.K. 2016-01-25 09:37

    Interesting information
12. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-01-25 10:14

    If we consolidate counties, maybe we need to make sure we buddy up rich counties with poor counties. :-)

    If you set 5,000 population as your threshold, you consolidate 30 counties. Do we mash those small counties together with each other, or do we merge them with adjoining larger counties? Do we consolidate along existing boundaries, or do we divide up existing counties?
13. Paul Seamans 2016-01-25 11:33

    If you consolidate Jones, Jackson, the former Washabaugh and Haakon counties together you would probably still be short the 5000 minimum population. Probably 80 miles from east to west along I90. Do I complain to someone in Philip if my roads south of Draper aren’t plowed. That is if I were a complainer.
14. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-01-25 21:21

    Paul, by my count, you get just about 6,000 from that consolidation… and a darn big county. I was playing around with the map, looking at consolidation options to reach 5,000 or maybe 7,500. If I try to keep from folding small counties into those with large populations, I get some awfully big consolidated counties. Harding and Perkins pose a problem: together, they only add up to 4,300 people. Combining each county with its southerly neighbor creates some long snowplow routes. Imagine it: Harding with Butte? Perkins with Meade? Driving from Lemmon to Sturgis to get to the courthouse?
15. Paul Seamans 2016-01-25 21:48

    Cory, I wonder how Meade County residents handle it now. Image living in Faith and being called to jury duty in Sturgis. Maybe we could learn from them.

    I always like the story of the Texas ranch boy going to an Ivy league college. A professor asks the class if anyone knows where Deaf Smith County is located. Finally the Texas student answers, “it’s in the northwest corner of my grandpa’s calving pasture”.

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