Questions of Timing<\/strong>
\nCommissioner Joe Bryan, a Republican whose seat is also on the November ballot, questioned why the Democratic minority wanted to wait until August to make a decision. <\/p>\nSullivan said waiting until August would give the Commissioners time to get as much information as they could about the state\u2019s budget implications. <\/p>\n
While state leaders have vowed to increase teacher salaries, the budget and exact figures have not yet been approved. Part of the funding for the raises would come from an increase in county supplements, for which Sullivan said the county has not planned. A sales tax increase would help cover the shortfall. <\/p>\n
Bryan, who is opposed to the tax, countered that it\u2019s unlikely the Commission will have any additional information from the state between now and August, and challenged supporters to make a motion that night. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe already know the base minimum is 5 percent,\u201d Bryan said. \u201cWhat information do you need?\u201d<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s increase could be as high as 11 percent. <\/p>\n
Democrat Commissioner James West accused Bryan of calling for action for political purposes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan was to make sure we got all of the information so nobody could say we rushed through the process and we just pushed this down somebody\u2019s throat,\u201d West said. <\/p>\n
Bryan said the amount of the shortfall won\u2019t be known until the fall, following an audit. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat new information are you going to have between now and August the fourth?\u201d he repeated.<\/p>\n
Sullivan said the state\u2019s decision won\u2019t change the intent of what she\u2019s trying to accomplish with the sales tax referendum. She added that the county will need a sustainable revenue source to pay for the state-required supplement increase. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done everything except act like leaders,\u201d Commissioner Betty Lou Ward said. <\/p>\n
Ward initially took Bryan\u2019s challenge and made a motion to approve the referendum, but withdrew it after it wasn\u2019t seconded. <\/p>\n
Bryan said the sales tax would continue to widen the divide between rural and urban counties. Rural counties, he said, wouldn\u2019t be able to raise the funds necessary to be competitive. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a statewide issue and it needs to be solved at a state-wide system level,\u201d Bryan said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a contentious discussion about a potential sales tax referendum, Wake County Commissioners Monday decided to hold a vote in August to put the increase on the November ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24029,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,15],"tags":[1706,1707],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}