On Monday, November 7th, the Jasper City Council passed its percentage of the Local Option Sales Tax (L.O.S.T), in addition to passing the city’s millage rate.

City Finance Director Tacie Williams explained that,

“at the conclusion of every census, every 10 years, state law requires that we (the City of Jasper) renegotiate with the county as to what percentage the City of Jasper gets of the sales tax collected.”

Since last negotiation, Williams said that Jasper has received 25.7 percent, where the City of Nelson received 2.8 percent, Talking Rock 1.5 percent, and Pickens County 70 percent. Jasper City Mayor John Weaver sat down with Pickens County Commissioner Robert Jones to renegotiate the percentages. During negotiations, Weaver told Jones that he felt that Jasper was worth at least 40 or 45 percent of revenue from the sales tax. Jones, however, did not agree. But, Weaver said that he decided to accept the existing 25.7 percent, saying that L.O.S.T

“has been quite the revenue for the city of Jasper.”

On the Mayor’s recommendation, the council passed the approval of retaining the same percentage rate.

“We will probably be among the first to get our numbers in to the state,” Weaver mused, “and hopefully we’ll be one of the first to be accepted.”

During the meeting, the city also tentatively set its millage rate. Williams said that the millage rate is a

“large part of the general fund budget,”

and that the city has had very little growth in the digest this year, a $23,775 increase from last year against a digest of over a million dollars. Prefacing the millage disclosure, Williams noted that,

“gross millage is what it actually takes to operate our city and when you see the rollback, that’s what we’ve collected that we’re required to rollback our millage rate. So, it takes around 9 mills to run our city’s operating budget, but because we get sales tax, we get to roll back our millage rate, and only tax our citizens about half (of) what it actually costs to run the City of Jasper.”

For the past six years, she noted, the millage rate has been 4.69, where the gross millage rate has been 9.07. Williams explained that based on the sales tax collection, the city is able to roll back 4.3 mills, to keep the millage rate at 4.69. The council approved to keep the 4.69 millage rate. During the discussion, Mayor Weaver mentioned that the city would accept the “tax appraisers’ gift,” which will bring a few extra dollars, which Weaver said the city would invest into the Police, Fire and Rescue Departments. Williams also recommended that the city retain its exemptions. Homestead exemptions are $3000 and senior citizens exemptions, $4000. The council approved the recommended millage rate, along with the home-owners exemptions. Williams clarified, though, that the millage rate is for 2011 for taxes which are due in 2012