MAYVILLE – Even though the county sales tax is nearly guaranteed to remain at 8%, some Democratic county lawmakers continue to call for it to be lowered.

In March, the Chautauqua County Legislature approved a resolution requesting that bills be written so that the state legislature would allow the sales tax rate to remain at 8%.

Now that the bills have been written, the county legislature was again asked to approve having an 8% sales tax rate at its April meeting.

In March, the five county Democratic lawmakers voted against the 8% sales tax rate.

Before the April vote, Legislator Tim Nelson, D-Jamestown continued to rail against the higher rate.

“Last month I supported lowering this sales tax and I still believe that it is the right thing to do for our county residents,” he said.

He noted how in Pennsylvania, including Erie and Warren counties, the sales tax rate is 6% and argued that a lower sales tax in Chautauqua County can encourage residents to spend their money locally.

Nelson said that a higher sales tax rate disproportionately affects lower income households.

Finally, he argued that a lower sales tax rate would help the local economy.

“It will lead to increased consumer spending, thus stimulating the economy, meaning more sales for retailers, potentially leading to job creation and economic growth,” he said.

After Nelson, Larson spoke for seven minutes straight, going over the history of the higher sales tax, saying it was initially installed to cover rising Medicaid costs but that has now been capped.

He lobbied lowering the sales tax to 7% for two years and then said if there’s a problem, the county can go and have it raised back to 8%.

But Legislator Terry Niebel, R-Sheridan, responded, saying there is a lot of uncertainty at the state and federal government and funds that the county has received in the past may not continue at the same level.

He also believes now is not the time to make decisions regarding county finances.

“The prudent thing, I think, to do is to go through the budget process, which starts in about three months, and see where we’re at and then hopefully we can reduce the county property taxes,” he said.

When the time came to vote on the resolution supporting the state legislature approving the 8% sales tax rate, the vote passed 13-2 with Nelson and Larson voting against it. Fellow Democratic legislators Bob Bankoski of Dunkirk, Marcus Buchanan of Dunkirk, and Tom Carle of Fredonia were absent. In March, those three joined Nelson and Larson voting against the 8% sales tax rate.

Also absent was Republican legislator John Penhollow of Stockton.