A move to change how Beaufort County distributes sales-tax revenue generated in the county failed after a vote by the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday.

Commissioner Hood Richardson made a motion to “divide the sales-tax money in a manner that is most advantageous to Beaufort County.” Commissioner Stan Deatherage seconded his motion.

“I believe we would net out something like $700,000 or $800,000 of money that we are now subsidizing these towns and cities with,” Richardson said.

Deatherage said the switch would put the money in the county’s “coffers and out of the coffers of more-inefficient governments.”

He continued, “Let’s face it. City governments, by their nature, are extremely inefficient. Look at Washington. They have never found a grant they could not turn down.”

The motion failed when commissioners Jerry Langley, Al Klemm, Ed Booth, Gary Brinn and Robert Belcher voted against it. Richardson and Deatherage voted for the measure.

Currently, the sales-tax revenue is distributed by the per-capita method, which favors the seven municipalities and the 22 fire and/or EMS service districts in the county. The ad-valorem method suggested by Richardson would favor the county.

An analysis of the two methods shows Beaufort County would gain nearly $800,000 in revenue under the ad-valorem method, with each of the municipalities losing revenue. The City of Washington would lose nearly $900,000 in revenue, with the six remaining towns losing anywhere from $27,664 (Pantego) to $204,974 (Belhaven).

“Mr. Chairman, I can’t support this. I mean cities … rely on this money … as part of their budgets. … I’m not going to vote for taking their tax revenue that they’ve been getting for years,” Booth said, adding the municipalities have been accustomed to having those revenues as part of their budgets year after year. Taking away that revenue source would be unfair to them, he said.

The proposed change could not have happened in the upcoming budget year. If a county opts to use the ad-valorem method to distribute sales-tax revenue, it must inform its municipalities by April 1 of the fiscal year before the next fiscal year begins. The county’s fiscal year begins July 1. The earliest a change in the distribution method could be made would be July 1, 2014.