Early voting begins Wednesday in the March 1st Presidential Preference Republican Primary. While the voting ballot is dominated by voting for Candidates of the Republican Party and Democratic Party for President of the United States and Committed and uncommitted delegates at large and 6th Congressional District, a couple of local issues are also on the ballots will allow the local voters whether or not to help the county government bring in revenue in the form of taxes. One referendum is the sales tax referendum. At the current rate, Cannon County residents pay 1.75% on anything they purchase within the county itself. If Cannon County residents go purchase anything from all surrounding counties, those counties have a 2.75% sales tax which is about a penny more than what residents pay in the County. All the sales tax referendum is doing is raising the 1.75 percent sales tax to the 2.75 percent sales tax rate that all surrounding counties have in place. This will bring added significantly added revenue to the county in a tax that many residents are paying already outside the county giving those particular counties extra revenue. The other referendum is for the Wheel Tax Rate to increase by $20.00. This would raise the costs of vehicle tags in Cannon County from $74.25 to $94.25 with the extra revenue going into the County General Fund Balance. The State of Tennessee has sent their county budget guidelines to each county in the State. One of those guidelines is for each county to build and maintain a healthy general fund balance. For many years Cannon County has been forced to deplete their once healthy general fund balance while revenues were not increasing to meet the necessary demands of the county expenditures. In the same time frame, there were no tax increases to help bring in the extra revenue. The depleting of the fund balance is dangerous to the the county’s operations and effects everyone. Instead of gradual increases of property taxes during that time period, Commissioners were forced to make significant increases later on in order to keep operations funded. This additional revenue will help the county meet the state requirements for a healthy fund balance and a successful fiscal year budget without having to have significant increases in property taxes in order to get the budget to State of Tennessee Expectations . Early voting will take place at the Election Office at 301 West Main St. Suite #244 February 10th thru February 23rd Except Sundays and President’s Day (Feb.15th)
Hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8A-1P, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4P-7P and Saturday 10A-1P.
