After years of voting against it, Teton County now has a seventh penny of sales tax.
Voters narrowly approved the Specific Purpose Excise Tax in November to fund a new county courthouse and jail after elected officials shared that the current one was no longer in adequate shape.
The tax goes into effect April 1 and won’t touch necessities, like grocery items.
The response around Jackson has generally been mixed, though businesses around Town Square don’t seem too worried about it.
That includes Jeff Wilcox of Wilcox Gallery.
“As a business manager here, I don’t love having to pass that on to my clients,” Wilcox said. “But, as a member of the community, I like what the 1% does.”
Elected officials have long said the jail needed renovating and for the first time, it’ll be housed under the same roof as the courthouse.
When Carolyn Hines opened her jewelry shop on the town square more than five decades ago, the county was debating whether to add a fifth penny of sales tax.
She doesn’t anticipate the extra penny this go around changing much for her business, other than having to update the payment system.
For businesses like Hines Goldsmiths, customers often pay in a series of payments. Any transactions initiated before April 1 won’t have the additional penny, even if the payments come in later, according to the Wyoming Department of Revenue.
Local businesses update payment systems as Teton County sales tax goes up from 6 to 7 percent this week. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel/KHOL)
On a personal level, she would have liked to see the money fund other projects.
“I’d rather see the potholes in the roads fixed,” Hines said. “Is our jail really that inadequate or bad?”
Elected officials seem to think so. All through the fall, the county campaigned for the SPET vote saying the jail needed updates.
With a mere 25 vote margin, the seventh penny scraped by in the November election.
Elected officials had pushed for it because it is paid in large part by visitors.
Less than a week before the bump went into effect, tourists didn’t seem bothered.
(Sophia Boyd-Fliegel/KHOL)
Alana and Tara Sullivan of New York, sisters visiting Jackson for a bachelorette party, two tourists that had no vote in fall but said the outcome didn’t phase them.
“We have a lot of sales tax where we’re from, so it’s probably better here even with the 7 cents,” Alana Sullivan said.
