One of the things that Carbon County Commissioner Tony Martines campaigned for was to maintain and control budget spending, which a lot of voters know that the county’s budget needs some attention.

“We always knew, I think a lot of citizens here know that we are not in the best standing financially with the county, we have a lot of debt that we have to pay for on an annual basis the revenue has gone away,” said Commissioner Martines. It was at one time the revenue was coming from mineral lease monies but that funding has diminished over the years.

The commissioners are looking at a tax increase that will not affect the locals and could bring in some monies to assist the county’s budget. “We may have to look at doing a little bit of tax increase. Now when I say that, I’m not talking sales tax, I’m not talking property tax right now, what we’re looking at is the TRT tax or the Transit Room Tax. For us we look at it as the easiest one to go after that doesn’t really affect the locals. This would be the folks that come and stay at the hotels, we’re looking to increase that tax rate a little bit,” stated Commissioner Martines. This tax increase is not to alarm citizens its just an option that commissioners are looking at to bring in some revenue.

“If you look at the hotel rooms and see the amount of traffic that is in there, if we can get a couple more dollars from the people that are staying there and it doesn’t come directly from the county citizens – for us we see that as an easy burden to pass,” said Commissioner Martines. This is still in the talking stage but it’s important that the commissioners keep the public in the loop by informing them of a possible TRT tax increase.

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