SMALL TAX HAS LARGE IMPACT

To the Editor:

I, as a board member of the town of Plymouth, do not like raising taxes. I am wondering if Mr. Deruyter thinks the one-half cent tax is going only to the Highway Department? Does he not know that if the tax is not passed the Sheriff’s Department, Human Services Department – and other departments throughout the county – will suffer? As a member of the town government, we have bid jobs and almost every time private sector was more expensive than hiring the county.

Also, the prevailing wage, which the government mandates by the job type, will even the bidding for everyone, which, in turn, will eliminate the little contractors who do not pay that wage to their employees.

The County Highway Department sells blacktop to surrounding counties and also to most cities and villages in the county. Should the county blacktop plant be closed, there would be only one private blacktop plant in the county – creating no competition and therefore controlling the pricing.

If the Highway Department cuts employees, it will not save the towns any money because that work still needs to be done and the private sector is usually more expensive. So, by making towns hire private, the individual taxpayers in the towns would have to pay the total cost as an increase on their property taxes. If the half-cent sales tax is enacted, at least some of the money would come from people other than our county taxpayers.

Also, everyone needs to know that 75 percent of the county budget goes to fund programs that state government tells the counties they have to have done – but do not fund. Sheboygan County is one of seven counties that do not have an extra sales tax, so we pay the extra tax when buying items in all the other counties.

By having the county maintain the roads, driving conditions in the winter have been better than some of those townships that hire the private sector. Some towns that hire private companies have not been able to afford to resurface their roads, so the roads have become very rough. The towns would need to raise property taxes to generate the extra cost for such matters.

James Lubach