Petersburg residents will decide this fall whether or not the town should have a sales tax exemption for seniors age 70 and older, regardless of income. The citizen initiative will be Proposition No. 3 on the ballot.
Resident Susan Martinez gathered nearly 360 signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.
“I think, remarkably, I got a good voice of the people in this community,” she said at a Borough Assembly meeting in July. “The youngest one just got his voter ID, all the way up to somebody that was almost 90 years old. And they were all very positive about wanting this pushed through.”
Martinez said she had several weeks of back and forth with the Borough attorney on how the language was written.
“I tried to keep it simple, so it’s not confusing to people that go out and vote,” she said. “They’re either going to vote yes, they want the seniors to have the [exemption], or no, they don’t.”
Issues about the senior sales tax exemption in Petersburg have been on the ballot a number of times, never passing — until last year.
Local voters decided last fall to end the town’s exemption for any seniors age 65 and older, and replace it with one limited to just low-income seniors. Eligibility is determined by the state’s Senior Benefits Program.
Last year’s ballot measure passed by just nine votes. After it took effect in January, seniors earning more than the low-income threshold lost their sales tax exemption.
The change dropped the list of roughly 487 participating seniors, of whom 80% are over the age of 70, to about 60 people who qualify as low-income.
Switching to the income-based exemption was proposed by the Borough to garner funds for essential public services amid rising costs, falling revenue, and a growing senior population. Over a quarter of Petersburg’s population is 65 and older.
Before the change took effect in January, exempting the participating seniors cost the Borough roughly $400,000 a year in lost sales tax revenue, according to Borough finance officials.
Passing Prop 3 and installing an exemption for seniors age 70-and-up is estimated to remove at least $350,000 in Borough revenue.
“These are rough numbers,” Borough Manager Steve Giesbrecht said at an assembly meeting last month. “It takes a year or two to kind of settle in and make sure the numbers are right. But the estimate is, if the initiative passes, we’ll lose about $350-400,000 in revenue.”
If approved by Petersburg voters, Prop 3 would add another senior sales tax exemption, alongside the town’s existing low-income option. That low-income exemption for seniors age 65 and up wouldn’t change.
Petersburg’s municipal election is Oct. 6. The last day to register to vote is this Sunday, Sept. 6.
