What is the Evans public safety sales tax and can it fund fire improvements?

In 2004 the voters in Evans approved an increase in the sales tax rate from 3% to 3.5% with the additional .5% dedicated to public safety staffing improvements. This was originally intended to fund three additional police officers and three full-time firefighters in 2005. It was hoped that as commercial activity grew that this dedicated sales tax would generate enough revenue to fund public staffing needs into the future. With the slow growth in commercial development and the economic downturn in general, this dedicated sales tax has not fulfilled its original expectation.

In 2011 this dedicated .5% sales tax will generate $634,533. In today’s dollars the six public safety positions added in 2005 cost approximately $430,563. This dedicated tax will generate only $203,970 beyond the original six positions and funds approximately 2.8 of the nine new public safety positions added since 2005. This indicates that the 2004 public safety sales tax will not generate the revenue needed to address fire apparatus replacement or service level improvements.