Some of the ideas that the Committee have come up with as new tax alternatives are reasonable. Charging a fee of some kind to help cover the costs of our county ambulance, volunteer fire, and rescue squad services may be a good idea. With the exception of County EMS and Jefferson City, our firefighters and rescue squad are volunteers. As one who is a part of my local fire department in White Pine, It can honestly be said that even though our department may be the county's most well-funded and equipped, making sure that a new member is properly fitted with the right equipment is almost always a problem, and that makes recruiting new firefighters and first responders difficult. Having a source of public revenue dedicated to the fire service and rescue squad would take the burden off of County Commission to find the funds that our volunteer firefighters need. On the other hand, the idea to try and charge non-resident Carson-Newman College students Jefferson County Wheel Tax is not only a slap in the face to Carson-Newman students whose presence is a boost to our local economy-they spend their money and pay taxes in our restaurants, shops, and grocery stores-but the Tennessee Supreme Court may say that such a move is unconstitutional (and they'd be right) since you cannot force a non-resident temporary transient to become a Jefferson County resident if they do not wish to be such, and forcing these non-residents to declare residency here and tranfer their driver licenses is the only realistic way one could make such a move.
 
When considering tax increases, County Commission must be very careful that they do not force the citizenry simply to pay more in tax, but give them very little in real services in return.