<p>Kitchin</p>

Kitchin

ROCKINGHAM — The Richmond County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a tolling agreement with Hamlet and Rockingham which puts mediation on hold for six months while the three government entities discuss a solution to the dispute over the sales tax distribution method.

The agreement was prepared by attorney Hal Kitchin, a partner with McGuireWoods, and County Attorney Bill Webb, who are representing the county in the mediation. County Manager Bryan Land explained last month in an email to the Daily Journal that the cities agreed to put aside the threat of a lawsuit over breach of contract for this six-month period while they work with the county to come up with a plan on “revenue sharing.” This refers to a method of distributing sales tax revenues in a more equitable way after the county received far more than they projected, taking large chunks of funds out of the budgets of the municipalities, when they switched to an ad valorem sales tax distribution method exactly a year ago.

In March, all six municipalities joined together just like they did a year ago to call for the county to undo the damage that ad valorem caused. With the help of Ken Anderson, a CPA with Anderson Smith & Wike, PLLC, they gathered data which showed that from May 2020 to December the county saw a $1,975,879.03 increase over their revenue over the same timespan in 2019. Land projected prior to the commissioners’ initial vote in April 2020 that the county would only receive $675,000 in new revenue.

The mediation came out of the cities’ threat to sue over Land’s statement in that same April 2020 board meeting that the change to ad valorem was, in part, an effort to recoup losses the county had taken on in operating the new 9-1-1 Center. The cities had signed contracts with the county in 2015 which stated that they would not be asked to contribute funds to operate the Center.

Commissioner Andy Grooms asked for clarification on whether the discussions could proceed in the negotiations without approving the tolling agreement. Chair Jeff Smart said that the discussions would be at a “standstill” without approving it.

Webb explained that the agreement also gave the county the opportunity to have a “free flow of discussion” about solutions outside of the context of mediation where those discussions could be used against the county in a future lawsuit.

Grooms made the motion to approve the agreement, with a second from Vice Chair Justin Dawkins.

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Reach Gavin Stone at 910-817-2673 or gstone@yourdailyjournal.com.