Just like the killer in the Friday the 13th slasher franchise, the quarter-cent sales tax referendum keeps coming back from the dead and reappearing – and county voters will see it once again on the ballot in the 2026 Primary Election in March.

Though that’s a ways off, there is a lengthy process involved with getting a referendum on the ballot and Alston told the Rhino Times this week that, despite voters shooting down the referendum many times previously, he plans to advocate putting it back on the ballot at the first available chance.

Jason from Friday the 13th has come back in 12 different movies (and, by the way, racked up more than 150 victims) and the next reappearance of the sales tax referendum will mark the 8th time Guilford County voters will have had a chance to pass it.

Approval would mean that Guilford County shoppers would pay an extra quarter of a penny for each dollar spent on most purchases, with some items, such as medicine, excluded.

The sales tax referendum was a topic of discussion earlier this month when the Guilford County Board of Commissioners met with the local delegation of state legislators – because the county commissioners want something from the General Assembly that the commissioners think will help the ballot measure finally pass in Guilford County.

Under current North Carolina law, the language on the ballot cannot state a commitment for the additional revenue, so one argument opponents make is that, once the commissioners get their hands on that money, they may spend it however they like.  If the state legislators change the law and allow ballot language that legally commits the proceeds to Guilford County Schools’ needs, then, in the eyes of the commissioners, the ballot measure would be more likely to pass.

Previously, including last year’s sales tax effort, the commissioners have publicly stated that they would use the money for school needs, and the Board of Commissioners even adopted a formal resolution promising that’s how the proceeds would be spent.  However, they feel passage of the measure would be more likely if there were an ironclad, legal requirement for the funds to be used in that way.

In the past, the estimate has been that the quarter-cent sales tax increase would raise about $25 million annually for the county; however, Alston said the latest estimates project it would bring in much more than that.

“It would raise about $35 a year million now,” Alston said.

Alston and other commissioners, such as Commissioner Kay Cashion, have been trying long and hard for years to get the General Assembly to allow the commitment language on the ballot.

Alston said this could be the year that the law is changed to allow that, but it’s still up in the air.

“I’m not sure if we will be able to get that change made or not,” Alston said.

Chairman Alston said that, with housing and other property values increasing so much in recent years, a new $35 million revenue stream would help take some pressure off of those paying property taxes.  It would spread the burden around more, he said, since the sales tax is paid by everyone who spends money – not just property owners.

Also, the chairman said, a significant amount of that money would come from people who don’t live in Guilford County but do work in the county or simply pass through it.

Alston also said he needs the support of the majority of the Board of Commissioners to get the sales tax referendum back on the ballot.

“I’m just one vote,” he said.

He didn’t mention that a clear majority of the board – including those commissioners who work in the school system, have served on the school board and who volunteer in the system – have been huge advocates of the sales tax increase and that there will be absolutely no problem getting the votes to put it back on the ballot.

It was just on the ballot in the November 2024 election and voters rejected the proposed sales tax hike by a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent.

Only 30 of the county’s 165 precincts favored the measure.

The board was hoping that 7th time would be a charm in November of 2024 and now they’re hoping that the 8th time will be the charm.

So far, 46 of North Carolina’s 100 counties have adopted the measure; however, Guilford County voters seem particularly reticent when it comes to this issue.

Some backers of the referendum say it hasn’t been marketed very well in the past and it is true that in 2024 there didn’t seem to be a grand, loud, all-out unified sales pitch for the sales tax hike.

Here’s the history of how the sales tax referendum has fared in Guilford County.  In 2007, the NC General Assembly voted to allow counties to increase their sales tax by a quarter of a cent – as long as county voters approved. And the very first time Guilford County government could do so, it put the tax hike on the ballot.  That was the 2008 Primary election.

 It failed.

Since it failed, the commissioners put it back on the ballot six months later – on the November ballot that year – only for it to fail again.

The Board of Commissioners then put the measure on the ballot in the General Elections in 2010 and 2014, and once again in 2020.

Since none of those efforts were successful, the board put it on the 2022 Primary Election ballot – where fewer voters turn out than in general elections – and it still lost.

Here’s how the sales tax hike referendum has fared in past years, in the 2008 General Election, it failed massively with 65,329 voting for it and 148,798 voting against. That is, it lost 30 percent to 70 percent.

Fifteen years ago, the advocates almost managed to get it passed: It came close in the 2010 General Election, when 66198 people voted for it, while 70,022 voted no. That vote came down to 49 percent voting yes and 51 percent voting against.

The measure didn’t fare nearly as well four years later, in the 2014 General Election when 68,735 voted for it and 91,962 voted against.  That year it lost 43 percent to 57 percent.

In the 2020 General Election, 89,440 voted for it, while a whopping 181,033 voted against. That works out to 33 percent yes votes to 67 percent no votes.

In the 2022 Primary Election, 33,720 people voted for it, while 41,457 voted against it.  That 45 percent to 55 percent vote didn’t cut it either.

And, again, in November of 2024, the referendum went down in flames with 60 percent of the county’s voters voting no.

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