A chart shows the proposed rate changes

Forum reviews business license proposal

By Leigh Anne Butler

An ordinance to amend the City of Tallassee’s business license rates was tabled at the Aug. 26 regular city council meeting.

This comes after a similar proposal was presented two years ago and tabled after discussions and public meetings concerning the topic.

The current business license structure has not changed in approximately 20 years. With the new proposal, some businesses would have license increases based on their gross receipts.

After Ordinance 2007-426 was tabled at the Aug. 26 city council meeting, a public forum was planned to discuss the proposal and allow local business owners to address the council with questions and concerns regarding the proposed structure of future business license rates.

On Aug. 6, the mayor and city council heard from local business owners and citizens.

“After reading over this (proposal), it feels like a punishment,” Samantha Segrest, owner of new downtown businesses, The Scoop and the Mill Collective, stated at the public forum. “The harder I work, the more money I spend on advertising. The more sales that come in, the more sales tax I pay the higher my business license. I don’t have a problem with business licenses going up, but I do have a problem with basing it off my gross receipts. What this will do to my business licenses is astronomical. Based on these calculations, we are talking about ten times what I paid this year, even though I’m bringing in the revenue and the extra sales tax.”

Corrie Sid, owner of Grove Station questioned the mayor and council regarding what she would gain as a business owner from the increase in rates. “My concern is the same as it was the last time this came up, which is what is the gain from the increase? What do we gain from paying more to be in business in a town where we are struggling to get people to visit. I don’t know if I’ve seen a strategy or a vision of how we are actually bringing in some form of investors or some form of increased tourism to our town that will help patronize and bring more business to our small businesses.”

Corrie Sid, owner of Grove Station, addresses the council

“We are existing businesses. We have spent our lives here. We’ve invested in other businesses in this town,” Dave Lawrence, owner of Tallassee Super Foods explained.

Lawrence asked a slew of questions he would like the mayor and council to eventually address. Many focused on the impact the new fees would have on the city as well as what additional benefits existing businesses would gain from the increases.

“I would like to get an actual increase passed,” Tallassee mayor Sarah Hill explained. “We have taken on internally as much as we possibly can. We have scraped and made sacrifices in terms of programs and additional employees. We went from 129 full-time employees 20-something years ago to 79 full-time employees that we have right now. We are busting our humps for grants. We are working on our side as hard as we possibly can, but we’ve identified this as a potential revenue source that we need.”

An amendment on Ordinance 2007-426 is on the agenda for the Aug. 13 city council meeting.