By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
BAXTER SPRINGS, Kan. — The Baxter Springs City Council this week approved a charter ordinance reducing the local hotel and motel guest tax to 4 percent.
The council had previously approved a charter ordinance setting the local guest tax at 8 percent. That took effect Jan. 1 and was met with complaints from Amy Sanell, co-owner of Cafe on the Route and The Little Brick Inn, and Paul Gandhi, owner of Baxter Inn for Less. They had noted that combined with the 2 percent county guest tax and the local sales tax rate of 7.8 percent, customers were paying a total tax of 17.8 percent. They said the local guest tax would hurt business.
“We were sympathetic to their reasoning,” Mayor Huey York said after the meeting about the complaints of the business owners.
Sanell said when reached by phone on Thursday that she was pleased that the council listened to her and Gandhi.
“This will be easier to handle for our guests,” Sanell said of the 4 percent rate. “I think they (council members) didn’t realize the impact it was going to have on our guests.”
She said customers would only consider it an increased amount of money out of their pockets.
In the wake of the Baxter Springs council’s earlier action to authorize the tax, the Cherokee County Commission had proposed a new formula for the county guest tax. Under the proposal, the tax rate would not change in towns where the combined city and county guest tax is 6 percent or higher. In towns where the combined guest tax is below 6 percent, it would increase to 6 percent.
In unincorporated areas outside towns, the county rate would be 6 percent, except for existing businesses with five or fewer rooms.
County Commissioner Richard Hilderbrand said Wednesday that he thinks the county proposal is probably dead. He said he has heard from a lot of people opposed to the measure and saying it is too confusing.
If the county guest tax doesn’t change, the combined guest tax in Baxter Springs would reduce from 10 percent to 6 percent under the City Council’s action Tuesday.
Sanell said she was surprised by Hilderbrand’s information. She said that if the county guest tax doesn’t change to the proposed level, hotels and motels outside towns would have a large advantage.
“I might have to revisit this issue,” Sanell said.
In other business Tuesday, City Attorney Robert Myers reported that he had met with Gwain January, with the Southeast Kansas Independent Living Resource Center, about access for people with disabilities at city-owned buildings and properties. Myers said some things already have been addressed.
“Some things are major, like the pool,” Myers said. “There’s a handful of these things that are real easy fixes.”
Police pay
The Baxter Springs City Council on Tuesday approved pay raises for police patrol officers Travis Conrad and Sheldon Bales.
