By HOLLY WAGNER
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
A greater percentage of Quincy voters favored the 1 percent school sales tax measure than did voters in the county last Tuesday.
Countywide, the sales tax garnered about 35 percent support with 65 percent opposed. A breakdown of votes by the county's 80 precincts shows that the highest percentage of votes in favor of the tax occurred in Quincy precincts, while the lower percentages were in precincts in the county.
The highest support was 47 percent in Quincy's Precinct 23, where voters cast ballots at St. Peter School. Residents of Quincy's Precinct 2, who voted at the Veterans Home, cast 45 percent of their votes in favor of the sales tax.
Forty-four percent support was registered in Precinct 20 at 18th and State, Precinct 41 at the Salvation Army at Seventh and Hampshire and Precinct 33 at Good Samaritan Home at 21st and Harrison.
Precinct 21 at Calvary Baptist registered 43 percent support, and 42 percent was registered at Precinct 42 at Salem Evangelical Church and Precinct 6 at Sycamore Health Care Center.
About 40 percent of voters supported the measure at Precinct 19, also at St. Peter's, Precinct 29 at Faith Presbyterian at 1027 S. 24th, Precinct 28 at the Knights of Columbus on South 36th, Precinct 34 at Trinity United Church at 2020 S. 24th, Precinct 35 at Calvary Baptist at 18th and State, and Payson 1 at the Payson Village Hall.
Precinct 34 also saw the highest voter turnout, 85 percent. The next highest was 81 percent at Precinct 32 at Trinity United, where the vote split 35 percent to 65 percent.
The lowest percentage of voter support was 19 percent at Concord 1 at the Concord Town Hall in Payson. The next lowest was 24 percent at Ellington 2 at Columbus Road Baptist Church in northeast Quincy.
Voters in the Quincy Public School precincts voted 36.2 percent in favor of the tax, compared to 32.5 percent in the Payson District, 32.3 in Camp Point, 32.2 for Mendon and 31.5 for Liberty. (Several of the precincts that overlap districts were counted for each district.)
The tax was on the ballot in nine counties in Illinois. It passed in Cass County and failed in all the others. It failed by 300 votes in Champaign County, by 367 votes in Pike County and by 15,547 votes in Kankakee County. In Adams County, there were 8,598 more votes against it.
Quincy voters had the most to gain from a sales tax, given that Quincy taxpayers are paying on $20 million in debt from bonds issued for school building improvements. One option for the proceeds from the sales tax would have been to pay off this debt. Quincy would have received about $4.2 million annually from the tax based on last year's figures.
Both the Camp Point and Liberty school districts have no outstanding debt. Every district tried to inform its voters about future projects that they would like to accomplish, ranging from roof replacements and additions to air conditioning classrooms. The sales tax could have been used to pay for those projects without the districts going into debt.
Reducing and preventing debt would have allowed the districts to lower their tax rates.
-- hwagner@whig.com/221-3374
