County Commissioners debate sales tax authority under Senate Bill 96

With all members present the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday, March 24.

The Civil Deputy State’s Attorney office asked the commission to consider a motion to approve a Rental Agreement with Eboom LLC to utilize the Lincoln County Fairground’s parking lot for Firework Sales. 

“The same applicant as last year has asked to be allowed to use the fairgrounds and entered into a rental agreement. After the test run there were lots of things that didn’t go as planned and we don’t make a lot of money off of it and I think it perhaps caused more complaints and headaches than what the county was earning on it,” said Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen. 

“We’ve had a lot of complaints on this, I think because it was at the county 4-H fairgrounds and even though they weren’t using the fairgrounds or the buildings, I don’t think $200 a day is worth the trouble that it caused with staff and the public,” said Commissioner Betty Otten. Motion to approve was made by Otten, seconded by Jim Schmidt, motion failed 5-0.

Commissioner Otten and Schmidt requested board discussion regarding 2026 Senate Bill 96 and how the County should proceed. 

“Drew and I have been working on this for quite a while because when we got into the bill itself, it’s not very clear. What they meant to do was have the county be able to do an ordinance imposing a sales tax of a half a cent to be referred to a public vote at the next general election. But it was unclear in the actual bill that we could actually do that,” Otten said. 

With hopes of reducing property taxes, Otten would like staff to prepare a draft for board action at a later meeting to develop an ordinance imposing a county sales tax of .5% to be referred to a public vote at the general election on November 3. 

Commissioner Joel Arends weighed in with his own thoughts. 

“In my legal analysis there is no legal mechanism in 7-18A to do a vote of the people. I recognize that when this was being sold to the public during the legislative session, there were some people, some legislators, who were saying that this would be a component to the bill, but I think they may have been speaking before the bill was drafted or they were misspeaking using some incorrect talking points,” he said. 

Commissioner Doug Putnam asked if firm figures have been provided on what would be brought in over the course of a year. 

“According to the Department of Revenue and the presentations they give the estimated .5% sales tax would be $13,040,922 which would be about 97% of our owner occupied rate in Lincoln County,” Auditor Lund responded. 

Commissioner Schmidt stated contacting the governor’s office for an interpretation of Senate Bill 96 would be the best option and bring it back to the commission to discuss again. 

Agreeing, Chairwoman Landeen opened the floor up for public comment. 

Chad Skiles was the first to express his opinion. 

“As an owner occupied property owner, on the surface this sounds like a great deal, I’m going to pay less on my property taxes. But as an owner of rental units, what do I tell my renters? What are they going to gain out of this? As a rental owner who tries to take care of his renters, I don’t want to go back and tell my renters the answer to that question. For the sales tax, I think it’s important that you lay out just in general, the state, county, whomever, what is all going to be part of that sales tax. Is it going to be groceries? If it is, bam, you’re hitting the hardest of the hard and again, that’s not helping anyone or anything,” Skiles said, urging the commission to let residents know what the sales tax exemptions will be. 

Three others urged the commission to let the residents of the county have a voice in the decision to be made.