Lewis County voters makes sales taxes permanent - Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports

MONTICELLO, Mo. — Lewis County voters made a pair of three-eighths cent sales taxes permanent so they do not come up for renewal every few years.

Both taxes became effective in 1989. One generates money for bridges and other capital improvements and the other brings in money for general operations of the county. Each of the taxes brought in about $219,000 last year.

The road and bridge tax was made permanent by a 1,058-587 margin. The general operations tax won voter acceptance 955-678.

Lewis County voters also rejected a change in the way fences are financed between farms to separate livestock and crops. Farmers with livestock will bear the entire cost of fences with neighboring landowners who have no livestock after the "local option" ballot provision was rejected 433-1,165.

In 2001 the General Assembly passed a law that put the cost of fence construction on farmers with livestock. That changed more than a century of law that called for a shared cost between neighboring landowners. Due to complaints from some segments of the farm community, there is now a "local option" that allows counties to opt back into the 50/50 fencing rules that were in place before 2001. Scotland, Knox and Shelby counties are among those that have approved the local option, according to the Missouri Farm Bureau.

"In a drought year like this, grain farmers can't afford the added costs of these fences," said a Lewis County grain farmer who asked that his name not be used.