Hettinger sales tax on ballot

Talk about it

Hettinger residents will vote next month on whether to allow the city to raise its sales tax a half a percent, a move which would provide funds primarily to repair city streets, a city official said.

Hettinger city sales tax currently sits at 1 percent. If the majority of voters approve the proposed half-percent increase, the tax would not exceed $37.50 on a single purchase or transaction.

Due to the small city budget, funds that would be raised by the sales tax would go primarily toward road repair, something needed within the city, said Hettinger Mayor Gary Friez.

“Our streets, our curb and gutter and all that stuff, are getting bad,” Friez said. “Every year we would do that, we would improve so many streets, or if we come up with enough money, we could maybe do the whole town. We would use some of that money to do that.”

The 1 percent sales tax was adopted in 1996, said Pat Carroll, Hettinger city auditor. From January to December 2009, the city sales tax brought in approximately $115,550. Carroll said to her knowledge, a sales tax increase has not been on city ballots in previous years.

“Every year, everything goes up,” Friez said. “In a small town, our budgets go up, too, but they can’t go up too much because we only have so much money we can get. We’re working on a 20- to 30-year-old tax structure around here. We just don’t have the money; we don’t have the oil or anything, because we’re right on the outside edge of oil.”

Friez said he is unsure how the vote will go.

“It could go either way,” he said.

Tags: sales tax, news, local, hettinger