VOTERS REJECT NICKEL TAX 1,551 – 1,278
JOHNSON COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) – Tuesday, many in Johnson County took to the polls to cast their vote for or against a nickel tax, but in the end it was voted down.
According to the Johnson County Clerk’s Office, 1,278 people voted for the tax, and 1,551 people voted against it.
“Exercise your American right to vote and if you’re asking me I say please vote for the tax,” Bob Hutchison, Chairman of the Johnson County Board of Education, said.
In 2014, officials implemented the tax to use the money in the school system.
“To give the students what they really need through proper facilities, safety, ADA compliance,” Hutchison said.
Officials said the money would also have gone toward building a new high school.
“Would also maybe give us the opportunity to start looking for property for a new school complex for the new high school,” Hutchison said.
The tax would have been a nickel on every $100 homeowners spend on property taxes.
For some, that increase is why they voted ‘no’.
“People live on a fixed income,” Todd Conley said.
Conley said he voted ‘no’ to the tax because he thinks the tax is something many people cannot afford.
“Some elderly people out here they need to, sometimes they have to juggle the difference of if they pay their power bill in whole or to pay for their medication,” Conley said.
Since 2014, the county received about $800,000 from the nickel tax.
Since the tax did not pass, the Board of Education has to pay the money back.
If the tax had passed, the state would have matched every $1.00 the county received with an estimated $1.83.
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Editor’s Note: Lawrence County voters will have the opportunity to vote up or down on a similar “nickel tax” of their own which was imposed by the Board of Education two months ago. A successful petition demanded a vote and the BOE has set that vote for Nov. 2018.
