North Carolina residents have approved seven out of eight local sales tax referenda in 2010, a trend that limited government activists say reflects new tactics county officials are using to sell the tax hikes to voters.

It’s a marked difference from the past two years, when voters rallied against the quarter-cent sales tax by wide margins. In 2008, increases passed just three of 34 times on the ballot, often voted down by 3-to-1 margins.

The sales tax is one of two local-option taxes that dozens of counties have considered during the last three years. The other is a 0.4 percent land-transfer tax, which has failed every time it’s been up for a vote. The General Assembly gave counties the right to put the local-option taxes on the ballot beginning in 2007.

One reason voters are more receptive to new taxes this year is because they’re seeing the effects of county budget cuts, said Todd McGee, communications director for the N.C. Association of County Commissioners.

“They are seeing reduced hours at the public libraries and public parks, reduced funding to schools, cuts in human services and public health departments,” he said. “I think that is making some of them more open to considering the new taxes.”

But opponents point to new strategies counties are using to get the referenda approved.

“Here’s the biggest sales pitch they’re using on people: the sales tax affects everybody … it gets the Mexicans, it gets the illegals, it gets everybody,” said Allen Page, Southeast regional director for FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group opposed to the taxes.

Page also said that elected officials indirectly are threatening to raise property taxes unless voters OK the sales tax increase. “They hold the vote hostage, of sorts, by saying that if [voters] don’t vote this sales tax in, we’re going to raise your property tax,” he said.

That scenario cropped up in New Hanover County, where voters approved the sales tax hike May 4 by a narrow margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. Seven weeks later, county commissioners backed an annual budget that included a 1.3-cent property tax increase. Some residents felt mislead by commissioners’ rhetoric on the topic.

“If you vote no to the quarter-cent sales tax, you’re voting yes to a property tax, and nobody wants to see that,” said commission chairman Jason Thompson in an interview with WECT News in April.

In a Wilmington Star-News story published two weeks after the vote, Thompson said his comments referred to the fact that if voters hadn’t approved the sales tax, an even larger property tax hike would have been necessary.

Public officials in other counties have made similar pledges. Robeson County commissioners promised to reduce property tax rates by 2 cents if voters endorsed the sales tax increase. Residents did so Aug. 3, but the pledge isn’t legally binding.

State law bars local governments from spending taxpayer dollars to push the tax hikes, but officials can mount education campaigns. It’s a fine line between advocacy and education that critics say public officials often cross.

Page objects to the timing of the referenda, too. Similar to Robeson County, commissioners scheduled five of the eight votes this year on days that aren’t a primary or general election. As a result, turnout has been in the single digits.

“If they’re going to put it on the ballot, at least put it on the ballot during a normal election,” Page said.

Ten more sales-tax referenda are on the ballot this year. Nine are scheduled for the Nov. 2 General Election, and one, in Watauga County, for Aug. 31.

David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.