White Pine County Commission candidate Gary Perea said he would oppose a proposed new electricity tax on county residents and business supported by his opponent Mike Lemich.
“I was on the Commission when we decided to sunset it,” Perea said. “It was first imposed during the county financial crisis six years ago. I think the tax is unfair especially to ranchers. There are other ways to balance the budget without making life harder for hard working families.”
According to County Commissioner Mike Coster the proposed county budget was some $1.8 million in the red and the only options for the commission is to either dip into the county’s rainy day fund or raise revenue either by an increase in fees or taxes.
To help balance the budget the commission is considering re-instituting the two percent electric tax.
“I am against raising taxes,” Coster said. “And I am glad Mr. Perea also opposes this increase. Like most of us personally, we need to live within our means. That means spending only what we are taking in. And while it is not pleasant I think we should look at all parts of the budget including personnel before we raise taxes.”
While Coster said he would not support any kind of a tax increase, the option is certainly on the table and Lemich who is facing a primary election June 9th could be put in the unenviable position of being damned if he votes for it or damned if he votes for extreme budget cuts.
Elected to the County commission shortly after White Pine emerged from an embarrassing bankruptcy Lemich ran and was elected on his reputation as a fiscally responsible businessman.
The fact that the county budget is suffering from a shortfall at all will almost certainly used by his opponents in the upcoming primary that perhaps another man could have handled things better.
Lemich is facing former Ely Mayor George Chachas and former County Commissioner Gary Perea.
Of the two challengers it is most likely Chachas will deliver most of the verbal broadsides. The two men have known each other practically all their lives and it has not been an amicable relationship to say the least.
Public disagreements between the two have often devolved into insult ridden shouting matches some that have come close to physical confrontations.
While his two opponents are volatile, Perea is anything but. Even his opposition to the tax increase is not strident.
“It is simply not fair and not beneficial to the county in the long run,” Perea said. “It may be the easy thing to do, but that doesn’t make it right.”
When he was narrowly defeated in his own re-election bid two years ago, the county was in the black It has only been since he was gone that red ink began to flow again.
Howard, I have to note a correction. The county is not $1.8 million dollars in the red, and I did not say that. Rather, the gap between the total original county requests and the revenue projections was $1.8 million. The Commission worked hard in several public session to reduce that gap to less than $900,000. The gap now stands at about $900,000. Still bad, I think.
In the Preliminary Submission of the County budget made to the state on April 15, the Commission proposed to fill that gap with a new utility franchise tax (of approximately $130,000) that was opposed by 9 of the 10 citizens that provided public comment and taking another approximately $750,000 from fund balances (reserves) of the county. These figures were approximate because the Commission was unclear about whether the NEW utility tax would include the City of Ely or not. When questioned during public comment, Chairman Lampros said it would apply to all, but later discussion was unclear on how the $130,000 in NEW taxes was calculated — did it include City residents or not??? We do know that the City of Ely already has a 3% electric franchise tax of its own, so a county tax on electricity would be on top of that.
The State of Nevada has recently provided some revised revenue figures for 2014-2015, so the county’s final submission to the State will be revised. My goal, since I will not agree to establishing any NEW taxes in our County, is to recommend further cuts to planned expenditures. According to our Finance Director, that means personnel cuts are on the table. Nobody enjoys cutting positions, but the county cannot continue to add positions, provide free health insurance to employees, replace 2 year old phone systems with new, pay “stipends” to department managers, and the like when our revenues are going down.
I am glad that Mr. Perea sees that error of uncontrolled spending. He was financially responsible when he was a Commission before, and he runs a private business that cannot just take money from the public by adding taxes. We need him back on the Commission and the big spenders should be sent home.