Rodgers Said Work Session Might Be In Order To Talk Putnam Wheel Tax

The idea of a wheel tax for Putnam County residents surfaced during this year’s budget committee meetings as a way to create additional revenue.

Commission Chair Ben Rodgers said the idea came up again at this month’s commission meeting. Commissioner Sam Sandlin said time was ticking to get the idea before the public if it is something worth considering.

“He brought it up,” Rodgers said. “It had been brought up in budget committee and didn’t get any traction so I think that it may be brought up again at another meeting to discuss more. We may have a work session, I think that’s probably the best route to go is to call a work session of the county commission to talk about the options, to talk about what it would do.”

Rodgers said that about half of the counties in the state have a wheel tax. Putnam County has voted on such a tax in the past and it failed. Rodgers said that there are three possible routes that could lead to the passing of the wheel tax.

“The first method is the county commission pass it by a two-thirds majority vote at two consecutive regularly scheduled meetings,” Rogers said. “Just for example, we could vote on it next month, pass it by two-thirds, if it passes by two-thirds then we have to vote on it again.”

Rodgers said if this happens citizens have thirty days to petition the tax, with it going into referendum if 10 percent of county voters sign.

“Second method is the county commission could pass it by majority vote to send it straight to a referendum which would be voted on at the next election,” Rodgers said. “And the third method would be to ask the General Assembly to approve a private act.”

Rodgers said that if approved, the county commission can choose to only implement the wheel tax for a period of time. Rodgers said that the wheel tax of other counties is typically allocated to any one of several publicly available services.