Levy 1 percent or 2.

In the wake of the report by Canton, Ga.-based The Sports Force recommending the city’s Fisher Ferry property as the location for a proposed sports complex, Vicksburg’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen now have to decide how to fund the project using a special sales tax on hotel rooms and food and beverage sales.

The Mississippi Legislature in 2016 approved a local and private, or special bill, allowing the city to levy “up to” a 2 percent sales tax on hotel rooms and food and beverages sold in the city with the approval of voters in a referendum, which is expected to be on the June 6 municipal general election ballot. The bill allows for the tax to be automatically repealed once the debt is paid on the sports complex.

Vicksburg already levies a 2 percent hotel tax to fund the Vicksburg Convention Center. Warren County residents pay a special 1 percent county tax on food and beverages passed by the Legislature in 1972 to fund the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau. Those taxes are in addition to the statewide 7 percent sales tax everyone pays when they buy something from a store, book a hotel room and eat a meal at a restaurant.

Under the local bill, city attorney Nancy Thomas said, the total special sales tax the city can levy is 3 percent.

And that means the board will have to decide how much of the special tax it wants to use.

“They (the board) will have to adopt a resolution (setting the tax rate),” Thomas said. “The law gave them not to exceed or up to 2 percent. They may do that (adopt the full 2 percent). If they do that, it will take a shorter period of time to pay off the debt, depending on how they finance it.”

Thomas said she anticipates the board approving the resolution and setting the levy no later than March — the latest time they can do it to put the tax referendum on the June ballot.

Presently, people eating in a restaurant pay 8 cents tax for every dollar they spend, a combination of the 7 percent sales tax and the 1 percent county tax. People staying in a hotel pay a total tax of 10 cents on the dollar — the combination of the state sales tax, county tax and the 2 percent convention center tax.

If the board decides to levy the full tax, the special hotel tax for the convention center would be repealed.

It means people will pay a total sales tax of 10 cents on each dollar they spend when they eat at a restaurant or rent a hotel room.

If the board decides to levy a 1 percent tax, the convention center tax is reduced to 1 percent. People who eat at a restaurant would pay total sales tax of 9 cents on each dollar spent, and people renting a hotel room would pay a total sales tax of 10 cents on the dollar.

Vicksburg Convention Center director Annette Kirklin declined to comment on the tax and its effect on the center, adding she wanted to wait and see what the board does.

City officials said the VCC would still be funded by the city, but instead of a tax funding the VCC, the center would be funded out of the city’s general fund.

Joyce Clingan, a member of the Vicksburg Restaurant Association, said she supports the tax.

“Let’s do it,” she said. “I can’t speak for the other members, because we haven’t met about that (the tax), but I think everybody was for it when we started this about a year ago.”

She said she and her husband, Bob, travel, “And in Virginia, Bob an I were looking, and it was 8 percent at one place and 10 percent, all the way up to about 12 percent tax. And they’re paying for tourism and it pays off. You travel, you see that.”

Lynn Foley, director of sales for Courtyard by Marriott, also supports the tax.

“It will generate the dollars necessary to fund the sports complex. I think the complex is a necessary thing for our community, and I’m glad to see it moving forward, and anxiously anticipate the complex coming to fruition and helping every aspect of our community,” she said.