Severance Town Board sends sales tax increase to voters

SEVERANCE — Residents in Severance will get the chance in November to do away with a monthly transportation utility fee and approve in its place an extra 1% sales tax for goods purchased in town.

The Severance Town Board this week approved an ordinance to repeal the existing transportation utility fee, which is $15.50 per month per resident, or $186 a year, and a ballot issue that will ask voters to approve a sales tax increase on Nov. 5.

The sales tax would replace the transportation fee, which supports maintenance, improvement, acquisition, and expansion of the town’s transportation facilities and infrastructure.

According to the ordinance, an increase in the town’s sales and use tax rates by one percentage point to a total of 4% would garner no more than $1.2 million a year. In a town survey of 300 residents, 60% of those answering the survey would approve the issue at the ballot box.

Town board member Stephen Gagliardi said he was in favor of the sales tax over the monthly fee.

“It seems like there is pretty good reason to go to a 1% tax to get rid of the fee,” he said. “My belief is that I will be able to pay less taxes than the fee. That’s one of the reasons I’m doing this.”

The board voted unanimously to approve both ordinances; removing the transportation fee will be contingent on the sales tax passing at the ballot box.

One resident spoke against the tax in online public comments, stating he felt having an increased sales tax would deter new business from coming to town.

Mayor Matthew Fries, however, said people who shop at Centerra or in the Johnstown shopping center off U.S. 34 and Interstate 25 pay extra taxes of up to 10% to service the metropolitan districts that operate them.

“That’s hefty,” Fries said in the town board meeting this week.  “And it did not stop Scheels from going there or Burlington Coat Factory. … Just to also additionally educate the public, sales tax is what the consumer pays, not what the business pays. Business simply collects it. I don’t think it will act as a deterrent in attracting new business.”