Per staff in the Knox County Commission Library, below is a history of local property tax and wheel tax increases over the last 16 years:

1995--
25 cent (per hundred dollars) property tax increase,
from $2.91 to $3.16

1999--
55 cent (per hundred dollars) property tax increase,
from $2.77 to $3.32

2003--
$6.00 wheel tax established

2004--
$30.00 wheel tax increase,
from $6.00 to $36.00

A context in which we may consider the local PT increases of 1995 and 1999 is that a taxpayer owning a $100,000 home saw a dollar increase in his PT bill of $62.50 annually in 1995 and $137.50 annually in 1999.

Note that the current local PT rate is $2.36 (per hundred dollars) following the most recent round of statutorily-required property reappraisals reflected on homeowners' 2010 PT bills.

As to our Local Option Sales Tax rate, a staffer in the Knox County Finance Department was unable to ascertain at what point our present rate of 2.25% was established.

The staffer and I share a recollection that it has stood at that rate for more than a decade.

The staffer advises that the state-established ceiling for the Local Option Sales Tax, which remains set at 2.75%, was established in 1984.

Commissioners therefore retain the ability to raise our Local Option Sales Tax rate by an additional .50%, if needed and/or advisable.

Any increase commissioners might make to the county's Local Option Sales Tax rate must be approved by voters on a ballot initiative.

No ballot initiative is required of commissioners to raise either the property tax or wheel tax rates.

I neglected to ask Commission Library staff whether a ballot initiative would be required should commissioners reconstitute the wheel tax, as in turn it into an ad valorem tax (such that the owner of a more expensive car would pay a higher dollar amount of tax than would the owner of a less expensive car).