City Officials Urge Residents to Fill Out One-Cent Surveys

City officials are trying to figure out what future projects Casper residents want funded through the city's optional one-cent sales tax.

At a Wednesday morning press conference, Casper city manager John Patterson unveiled the city's new one-cent survey website and informally began a campaign favoring the renewal of the tax during next November’s midterm election.

Patterson says the tax is vital for the city's growth and future development. He also clarifies that the city is not asking for a new tax, but, instead, the continuation of a tax already in place.

“We’re projected to generate about $15 million per year, and almost all of that money goes back to contractors who are doing work on streets and water and sewer lines in the city, police car purchases at local dealerships, and fire (equipment purchases),” Patterson said.

Patterson also says Casper would be a much different place if the optional one-cent tax wasn't passed 38 years ago.

“There’d be no events center, there’d be no rec center, no aquatics center, no ice sheet out at the rec center, Fort Caspar, a great complex of museums, would not exist, and city hall, the building we’re in right now, would not exist,” Patterson said.

Patterson says the city cannot raise additional funds through property taxes. Paterson says the eight-mill rate for Natrona County is the maximum allowed by the state.

City councilors recently spent excess one-cent funds from last fiscal year on capital projects for Joshua’s Storehouse and Wyoming Food Bank of the Rockies.