HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Starting Monday, the sales tax rate for Reno County will fall by one-half percent.

The rate will fall in Hutchinson from 9.1% to 8.6%. The rate is falling because of the sunset to the sales tax used to fund the new county correctional facility. The county was able to pay off the bonds on the jail three years early. It means some nice savings on big-ticket purchases. It also means an average of an extra $450,000 in disposable income going into shopper’s pockets each month.

“If you’re going to buy a car, half a percent on $20,000 is a hundred bucks that stays in your pocket,” Dan Naccarato, Business Management and Entrepreneurship Professor at Hutchinson Community College, said. “It also helps families in grocery shopping. Over the course of a year, a family of four . . . that’ll probably save them $40 or $50 in sales tax at the grocery store.”

Naccarato says this is an opportunity for the city to highlight what it has to offer. “There’s every reason for people to buy local. We have tremendous merchants, we’ve got great service businesses. The sales tax is becoming a non-factor,” Naccarato stated.

Naccarato’s statements are echoed by business owner Bill Long of Long’s Clothing who has weathered just about everything when it comes to the Hutchinson business climate. Long says this is an opportunity for business owners who sell big-ticket items to promote what they have to offer. “Yes, absolutely they should. They’re in that higher dollar amount where it does make more of a significant difference,” Long said.

He hinted that, with the lower sales tax, local merchants may need to step up and provide more goods and services than they already do. “I think retailers have done that to a degree,” Long said. “I know we tried to do that. We’ve expanded some areas we felt there was a bigger need in and we’ve picked up some additional business. I think you’ve gotta take advantage of those possibilities when it happens and anybody that isn’t doing anything but exactly what they did before really doesn’t have anybody to blame but themselves if they’re not doing any better than they did before.”

Once the sales tax goes into effect July 1, Hutchinson will have the 6th lowest sales tax of the 30 most popular cities in Kansas. Eleven cities will have a lower tax rate. This compares with the current rate that ranks Hutchinson at No. 11 with 21 cities having a sales tax rate the same or lower.