Press Releases: 02/28/08 Mills announces Additional Springville HEAP Outreach 02/28/08 Mills Announces Orchard Park HEAP Outreach 02/15/08 Mills Announces Springville HEAP Outreach 02/05/08 Bee Column 02/08 01/04/08 Mills announces HEAP outreach efforts

John J. Mills - District 13 May 3, 2006 Mills seeks a more equitable sales tax sharing agreement and looks to eliminate health permit fees Legislator Mills announced two resolutions that he is co-sponsoring before the Erie County Legislature. Legislator Mills is seeking to enter into a more equitable sales tax sharing agreement with the cities, towns and villages of Erie County. He also seeks to eliminate Health Permit fees for certain non-profit groups and municipalities. Erie County entered into a sales tax distribution agreement with the three cities of Buffalo, Lackawanna and Tonawanda in 1977. The agreement provided that he local portion of the sales tax would be distributed 35.3% to Erie County, 29% to school districts, 10% to the three cities and the remaining 25.7% to the three cities and the areas outside of the three cities. The sales tax revenues distributed to the towns and cities would be used to offset Erie County property taxes. "The populations of the three cities have all decreased since 1977. The populations of the towns and villages have grown. As a result, the cities receive over $215.00 per capita and towns and villages receive less than $100.00 per capita. This agreement ignores the needs of our growing towns and villages to provide essential services." stated Legislator Mills. "Further, The money distributed to the towns and villages has never been used to directly offset Erie County property taxes. Rather, it has gone directly into the coffers of the towns and villages." Although the towns and villages do provide many valuable services for this sales tax revenue, Mills insists that the failure to apply the distributions as required by the agreement is further evidence of the need for a new agreement. Legislator Mills comments that "we need to terminate the 1977 agreement. We need to create a new agreement that is fair to the cities, fair to the towns and fair to the taxpayers of Erie County." Back to District 13 Homepage