Gas tax holiday begins in June for some counties

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Livingston County now joins Monroe County in helping to ease the pain at the gas pumps. This week, county leaders voted to put a temporary cap on the county sales tax collected on fuel at $3 per gallon.

News10NBC asked other local counties about their plans, if any, to give drivers some relief.

The gas tax holiday in both Livingston and Monroe Counties goes into effect on June 1. Both will stay in effect until the end of the year, but what works here isn’t working for every county.

"After considerable discussion, it was decided that in order for the Board to make a decision for it to be implemented via June 1 deadline, they didn’t feel that they had the information," said Ontario County Administrator Chris DeBolt.

While other neighboring counties are voting to temporarily reduce the cost of fuel per gallon, DeBolt says the Board of Supervisors, both the Government of Operations and Ways and Means Committee have yet to sign off on a plan for the gas tax. His county still has some more work to do before joining the others.

"So they directed staff to go back and do a number of reports, and the detailed analysis of what the impact would be to both property taxes payers, and those paying gas tax at the pump, and report back to them so they can make a certain decision for the potential implementation at the September 1st deadline which is the next sales tax quarter," said DeBolt.

He also says if approved for a September 1 start, their proposed cap on the gas tax would be reassessed at the end of the year depending on its success.

"I think one of the big questions that all county government leaders have at this point is whether the savings from the suspension of the gas tax will be passed on to consumers at the pump. That is a significant concern that in passed anecdotal evidence from other counties when this has been done it has not shown significant savings at the pump," said DeBolt.

Other counties we’ve reached out to such as Yates, and Wayne both say right now they have no desire to reduce their gas tax.