The Morrison Town Board is giving another Christmas gift to its businesses: waiving yearly business and liquor license fees. That’s in addition to waiving December water and wastewater bills.
Town board members say while both are small gestures, they want business owners to know they have the town’s support especially through COVID-19 restrictions and the closure of Highway 74 between Morrison and Idledale. Board members promised to look at water and wastewater bills again in January.
Both measures will cost the town about $12,500, and town officials are working on ways to make up the funds in the budget. The only business not included in the license waiver is Aggregate Industries.
Town Manager Kara Winters said the town has been able to save about $384,000 in the 2020 budget thanks to cutting nonessential spending and a hiring freeze.
In addition, the town is seeing additional sales tax revenue because of state mandates that corporations such as Amazon must pay local sales tax. Winters said she is working with the state because she believes the town is collecting sales tax for sales in the entire 80465 ZIP code rather than just sales within town boundaries.
From January through October 2020, the town has received nearly $1.5 million in sales tax revenue compared with $1.5 million for all of 2019 and $866,000 in 2018.