FDL County Executive Comments on Extension of County Sales Tax

The Fond du Lac County Board this month voted to keep the county’s half-percent sales tax on the books and remove the termination date of December 2021. The board voted 23-0 to keep the sales tax in place at last week’s meeting. The tax was put into place in 2010 as part of an incentive package to keep Mercury Marine from leaving Fond du Lac. The tax generates around $8 million annually, with the County putting $3 million of the revenue generated toward highway repairs, and another $1.5 million toward capital improvements.

In addition to that, County Executive Allen Buechel says the county has put a lot of the sales tax money toward economic development, and that’s helped a lot of companies grow throughout the county. “We helped Alliance Laundry expand, do $132 million worth of expansion and add about 800 jobs. We also provided loans to Wells Corporation, Mid-States Aluminum – so they could do a $20 million expansion, CD Smith Construction – for their expansion of their headquarters,” Buechel said. Buechel also identified smaller companies – including Integrity Saw and Tool, Legacy Trucking and Swenson Tool & Die of Campbellsport – that have benefited from a loan from the sales tax money. “We’ve put it to good use to improve the economy and to add jobs,” Buechel said. He adds that the investment made by these businesses just by leveraging from the sales tax is now over one-billion dollars, and nearly 4,000 new jobs have been added.

County Supervisors this month also showed support for allocating one-million dollars of the proceeds from the sales tax each year to municipalities around the county. Buechel says that would not start until 2022, after the Mercury debt service ends.