County Attorney Stephen Abdella and Finance Director Kitty Crow address Audit & Control Committee (April 21, 2022)
Democratic Chautauqua County Legislators are expected to pre-file a resolution Friday morning to alleviate the sales tax on gas in the county.
County Attorney Stephen Abdella informed the Legislature’s Audit and Control Committee that he had been contacted by Legislators Susan Parker, Bob Bankowski, Paul Whitford, and Billy Torres. Their resolution that would be on Wednesday’s full County Legislature agenda would opts for the fixed sales tax rate of 12-cents per gallon. Abdella said they had not set a sunset date for the resolution but were considering March 1.
Finance Director Kitty Crow said the county should still meet budgeted sales tax projections with the proposed 12-cents per gallon rate resolution, “So we wouldn’t expect a surplus and we wouldn’t expect a deficit. You know, I think that that would result in us coming in at budget.”
Crow said sales tax from motor fuel sales typically account for about 6% of the budgeted sales tax revenues.
No legislators from Audit and Control offered to co-sponsor the resolution, citing the need to gather more information about how it could affect local municipalities’ budgets. County Executive PJ Wendel said he had directed county staff to reach out to local municipalities to see if that information could be gathered before Wednesday night’s meeting.
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