Written by Darcy Costello of the Courier-Journal
More revenue options may be heading Kentucky cities’ way.
Two bills were filed Friday in the General Assembly that advocates say could help ease the strain of ballooning pension payments on municipal budgets by giving cities more ways to collect money — something Louisville and others have pleaded for this session.
“City populations are growing, and so are the strains on municipal budgets,” said J.D. Chaney, executive director of the Kentucky League of Cities. “Kentucky cities need more flexibility to tailor revenue options to the unique requirements of their local community, and each city should have the same opportunity.”
One of the measures filed Friday would grant all cities, counties and merged governments, not just smaller cities, the ability to levy a restaurant tax of up to 3%.
The other proposes a constitutional amendment, which would go before voters, to open the door toward allowing cities to collect additional taxes and fees by removing language that restricts legislators’ ability to reform local governments’ taxing powers.
If it were to pass, state legislators would have to return in a future session to lay out exactly what options to grant. One possibility: Letting a city or county levy its own local sales tax to go into its general fund budget.
(Cross-posted via the Kentucky Press News Service. Read the rest of the article at the Courier-Journal.)
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