Council directs city attorney to draft ordinance proposing higher sales and lodging taxes in Priceville

Councilman Dean moved that the city attorney prepare draft ordinances to raise Priceville's municipal sales tax from 2% to 3%, increase the lodging tax from 8% to 9% and raise the hotel room fee from $1.50 to $2.00. The motion was seconded and the council approved the request to draft the ordinances by voice vote.

The Chair clarified that the council was asking only for draft ordinances to be prepared and that no final vote on the measures was taken at the meeting. "We'll increase the city sale tax rate from 2% to 3%. We'll also make an increase to our lodging tax rate ... and we'll change our room fee from a dollar 50 to $2," Councilman Dean said when introducing the motion.

The action directs the city attorney to prepare the ordinance language and return it to the council for further consideration at a later meeting; the transcript does not record any final adoption or tally of yes/no votes by member name. The council did not set a public hearing date or an effective date for any change during the discussion recorded in the transcript.

Background: the motion originated during a Streets and Drainage item introduced by Councilman Dean. The transcript records the Council's approval to draft the ordinances but contains no detail about projected revenues, rate modeling, or planned uses for new revenue. Those fiscal details were not provided during the discussion and are listed in clarifying_details as "not specified."

Next steps: the city attorney is to draft the ordinance(s) language; subsequent readings, any required public hearings, and a final council vote would be required before any tax change would take effect.