Voters in Festus, Herculaneum, Hills-boro and Pevely will be asked on April 4 to approve a 3-cent sales tax to be charged on recreational marijuana sold in their cities, but it doesn’t look like a proposition to impose a similar countywide sales tax will be placed on the ballot this year.
In November, Missouri voters approved an amendment to the state Constitution that allows sales of marijuana to people 21 and older.
Facilities that currently sell medical marijuana were allowed to start applying for licenses to sell recreational marijuana on Dec. 8, with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services given 60 days to act on those requests.
As part of the constitutional amendment, the state will charge an additional 6-cent sales tax on recreational marijuana, and local jurisdictions are allowed to ask their residents for up to 3 cents more.
Those sales taxes would be charged on top of sales taxes already in place.
The Jefferson County Council discussed the issue on Jan. 9 but ultimately decided not to place a countywide 3-cent marijuana sales tax on the April ballot.
Director of Administration David Courtway told the council that if the county were to place the issue on the April ballot, the election likely would cost the county about $100,000.
He said the county had not budgeted for that expenditure because it does not regularly have any candidates running in April, which is reserved for municipalities, schools and fire protection, ambulance and road districts.
Election dates are reserved in August and November of this year under state law, but county and state officeholders’ terms come up only in even-numbered years, so if the county were to place the sales tax measure on the ballot for either of those two months, it probably would bear the entire cost of the election.
“It would likely cost us even more than (the $100,000 estimated cost for an April election) this year,” Courtway said of a special election in August or November.
Courtway said it’s difficult to determine whether placing the issue on a ballot would be cost-effective for the county.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he told the council, “if we spend up to a quarter-million dollars for a ballot issue and we only get back $50,000 a year, is it worth it? Because $50,000 is what we’d collect on $10 million in sales.”
Courtway said the state Department of Revenue does not release sales tax collected from individual retailers, so it’s difficult figuring out how much sales tax is collected from medical marijuana dispensaries, much less how much recreational marijuana might be sold.
“There’s no baseline, and there’s only a handful of dispensaries in the county that have not been operating very long. There are no numbers to quantify any of this at this point in time,” he said.
Courtway suggested county officials speak with dispensary owners to collect revenue information.
“We’re willing to do that and we want to be able to try to get as much information as we can, but we’re at a disadvantage because this is a brand new thing,” he said.
Courtway said state law also is vague when it comes to counties charging sales taxes.
“Would we be able to collect it countywide, including the municipalities, or would it just be in unincorporated areas? There are a number of questions we need legal opinions for,” he said.
County Executive Dennis Gannon said the county would have to tread lightly when it comes to placing any tax issue on the ballot.
“I mentioned a tax a couple of years ago (to build a new courthouse and jail) and I thought I was going to get hung by the yardarm,” Gannon said. “I know this is a little bit different – it’s a user tax – but in Jefferson County, people are very averse to taxes. I suspect we would be met with some resistance to this.”
County Councilman Charles Groeteke (District 4) said he supported placing a marijuana sales tax on the ballot, especially if the revenue were designated for specific uses.
“I believe that problems will be caused by this constitutional amendment and will cost our county and our Sheriff’s Office and our drug court,” he said.
Gannon also said the county’s immediate focus will be on aligning county codes to comply with state law concerning marijuana sales, and Courtway said the County Council will be seeing legislation on the subject soon.