Pevely officials are asking voters on April 2 to approve a 1-cent sales tax increase to help fund the city’s Police Department and other public safety improvements. If the sales tax is approved, the city’s real estate tax would be reduced by half, City Administrator Andy Hixson said.
The ballot measure, called Proposition Public Safety, requires a simple majority for passage.
Currently, those who shop in the city pay about 8.85 cents per $1 for sales tax. If the increase is approved in April, the sales tax rate would increase to 9.85 cents per dollar.
“We will decrease the city’s real estate property tax by 50 percent if the proposition passes,” Hixson said. “If you paid $800 to the city of Pevely in real estate property tax, the next year you’d pay $400.”
Hixson said the sales tax increase will bring in an additional $800,000 in revenue each year, and the city would lose about $400,000 annually by reducing the real estate tax, netting the city an extra $400,000.
“The (additional) money will be used for overall public safety – more officers, the number to be determined; better equipment, including police cars; better guns. Also, things you would not necessarily think of, like better paint for the roads.”
The city’s portion of the sales tax is 2.5 cents, and the rest goes to the state, county and other taxing entities. The state gets 4.225 percent, the county receives 1.6215 percent and the Joachim-Plattin Ambulance District gets 0.5 percent.
Pevely’s portion of the sales tax would increase to 3.5 percent of the 9.85 percent overall sales tax if the measure is passed.
The proposition reads, “Should the city of Pevely, Missouri reduce the property tax rate by fifty percent from its current rate and impose an additional citywide sales tax of one percent for the purpose of funding law enforcement for the city of Pevely?”
Hixson said that by increasing the sales tax and lowering the real estate tax, people who live outside the city but who benefit from services the city provides would help pay for those services.
“Eighty percent of our sales tax comes from non-Pevely residents,” he said. “So, this would 100 percent benefit every resident of Pevely. The visitors benefit by the services Pevely provides.”
The Pevely Board of Aldermen voted 7-0 on Nov. 20, 2023, to place the measure on the ballot. One board seat has been vacant since summer 2023.