Escambia County voted in favor of renewing the county’s local option sales tax for another 10 years.
The county-wide referendum passed with 84,178 votes in favor and 28,123 votes against, according to unofficial results.
Local option sales tax, which is also known as LOST, is a one-cent sales tax that has been in place since 1992, when county voters first approved it.
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State law allows the tax to pay for capital and infrastructure expenses like buildings, stormwater improvements, road projects and parks. The tax can also pay for equipment such as fire trucks and police cars, as well as economic development initiatives.
Escambia County and the city of Pensacola split the tax revenues based on population, and since 2009 more than $1.4 billion has been spent on LOST projects, according to an economic impact study from the University of West Florida’s Haas Center.
Since 1992, voters have approved renewing it each of the three times it has come up for renewal, most recently in 2016.
The result means the tax will remain in place until at least 2038.
Jim Little is the City Government Accountability Reporter for the Pensacola News Journal. If you have a news tip, please send it to jwlittle@pnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County voters approve Local Option Sales Tax renewal