Manatee commission, school board to have joint meeting on sales tax

MANATEE -- Manatee County Commission and Manatee School Board will have a joint meeting at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday to discuss a joint sales tax referendum.

The meeting at the Bradenton Area Convention Center was requested by the commission at Tuesday's meeting.

During the meeting, the two boards will discuss a joint approach.

"No votes will be taken at the meeting but the two elected boards will discuss a potential November 2016 voter referendum to fund local infrastructure," according to a news release.

"Both the commission and the school board are gathering information to decide whether to ask Manatee County citizens to consider a sales tax to fund local infrastructure this fall."

The school board is expected to ask voters this fall for a renewal of its existing half-cent sales tax, which sunsets in 2017.

A Citizens Financial Structure Advisory Board, tasked with addressing county

funding issues, unanimously recommended the commission place a half-cent sales tax referendum to fund transportation, public safety and parks needs on this November's ballot.

"The meeting will be taped by METV and televised Tuesday evening on MGA, which can be seen at mymanatee.org/mga and locally on Bright House channel 644, Frontier channel 30 and Comcast channel 20," according to the release.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 11:58 PM with the headline "Manatee commission, school board to have joint meeting on sales tax ."