CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The City Council voted down a resolution Thursday for the city to withdraw from a local option sales tax agreement with Montgomery County, which would have been phased over the course of several fiscal years.
The agreement, part of a referendum approved in 1977, provided a share of the city’s sales tax revenue to local schools, through the county, currently totaling about $3.5 million a year.
Councilman Brian Zacharias sponsored the resolution, saying the City of Clarksville is at the edge of a “financial cliff” based on projections he shared more than a month ago.
Concerns about city being sued
Zacharias introduced an amendment Thursday to allow the county to keep the revenue for FY 2027 as well. “This amendment gives a committee, should it be formed, the flexibility that they need to come up with a plan that serves the city and the county,” Zacharias said.
Councilwoman Stacey Streetman said she’s a no vote, now and in the future, for the amendment and the resolution. “It’s very likely we would be sued by the county over it; we haven’t fully yet determined if it’s legal as pointed out by the councilperson from Ward 12 (Keri Lovato),” Streetman said.
“I think this is a very divisive item between the two local governments. And if there is a lawsuit that is brought forward, being a resident of both, either way you’d be paying legal fees. I know that (Montgomery County Attorney) Tim Harvey is here tonight; my assumption is he’s probably here because of this item.”
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‘The two mayors need to sit down, and see how this could best work out’
Streetman said she has spoken with County Mayor Wes Golden, as well as a number of county commissioners, and she believes it would have been beneficial for the entire council to do so. “I’m still at the belief, as I was a couple of months ago, that the two mayors need to sit down and look at this and see how this could best work out,” she said.
While is she against withdrawing from the local option sales tax agreement, Streetman said she wouldn’t be opposed if the two mayors decided to create a committee of city and county officials, like is suggested in the resolution, to address the issue. “I think it’s more important for us to work together with our other local government officials than it is to bring this forward and do something that is going to be a divisive way of doing this,” she said.
Lovato: ‘It needs to be decided by voters’
The City Council voted 2-11 against the Zacharias amendment, and when the resolution was presented as proposed, Lovato said this issue needs to be addressed by Clarksville-Montgomery County voters instead.
“This needs to go in front of voters to make this change decision. It was on the referendum, that is what they voted on. Looking at (Leaf-Chronicle) articles from 1977, when this was presented to the voters, it was presented to them as if it would be a permanent fixture of funding for the school system. We don’t need a committee, I will be voting no on this. It does not need to be decided by a handful of people; it needs to be decided by the voters.”
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Councilman Jimmy Brown also said he is against the resolution due to one half of what’s being proposed. “If it was just to establish a joint committee to look at it, I’d be OK with it. But it automatically says that we’re withdrawing from it, period,” Brown said. “I’m going to be against that.”
Councilman Tim Chandler proposed that the resolution to be postponed until January 2027, when the new council members will be sworn in, but that failed for a lack of a second. The question was then called to cease discussion, which was approved with two-thirds majority vote.
The City Council then voted on withdrawing from the sales tax agreement, with the result 2-11. The lone members voting in favor were Zacharias and Mayor Joe Pitts.
| PREVIOUSLY: City Council discusses withdrawing from sales tax agreement