County commission discusses sales tax for hospital

The Jackson County Commissioners said Monday that they would support Holton Community Hospital administrators and the board of directors if they wanted to pursue a special sales tax for the hospital. 

During Monday’s commission meeting, Carrie Lutz, HCH CEO, and Marilyn Watkins, a member of the HCH board of directors, learned that the commissioners were not planning to pursue an additional sales tax for the county to help offset property taxes.

A special public meeting was held earlier this fall to discuss the possibility of increasing the county’s current sales tax rate to help offset a mill rate increase. 

At that meeting, many business owners said they were not in favor of an increase. Lutz also shared at the meeting that the hospital has lost revenues and reimbursements at the federal level.

HCH is only one of five hospitals in the state that does not receive any public funding and is not part of a health care system.

“The last thing the hospital wants to do is make the community upset by adding on to any new sales tax,” Lutz said. “Is there an opportunity for the hospital to have a separate tax? The most we’d look at is a quarter percent.”

Commissioner Mark Pruett said that the commissioners have decided not to pursue an additional sales tax for the county.

“The general consensus between the commissioners is that we were going to leave it up to the hospital,” Commissioner Pruett said of a possible new sales tax. “The public didn’t seem in favor of the county having a new sales tax.”

The commissioners said that members of the public may be more favorable voting for a sales tax if all the tax funds collected went directly to the hospital.

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