The city will have to pay Lauderdale County a third of their alcohol earnings.
Lauderdale County and Florence City leaders are scrambling to find solutions to a more than $2 million debt. State auditors recently discovered a major discrepancy.
The letter sent to the Florence City Clerk-Treasurer's Office in January said cities in Lauderdale County must give 1/3 of their alcohol sales earnings back to the county.
Florence had the biggest shock as they owe a whopping $2.5 million!
Lauderdale County Commission Chairman Danny Pettus says he's working with Florence's mayor, Andy Betterton, to make a payment plan.
He says they've only met once. Pettus anticipates there'll be another meeting soon. He told Â鶹Çø they started collecting payment in May.
"The May payment is going into our general fund, so we can use it for any kind of need in the county," Pettus explained. "Roads will definitely be a part of it. No doubt."
That general fund helps with county improvements. However, the question still remains, how does this much debt go unnoticed for so many years?
"I mean, it's very clear," Pettus explained. "A 6th grader could understand it. It simply says the county commission will get a third of any town municipality's liquor tax."
Pettus pretty much summed up title 45, chapter 39, article 20 of the Code of Alabama, which states in part:
"Any tax on alcoholic beverages levied by a municipality in Lauderdale County shall be distributed two-third to the general fund of the municipality where the tax is levied and collected and one-third to the general fund of Lauderdale County."
In simpler terms, it states that a third of any tax on alcoholic drinks must be paid to the general fund of Lauderdale County.
Â鶹Çø spoke with Betterton over the phone Thursday. He says city officials did not know about this law until early this year when they received the letter from state auditors.
He also says it happened before any municipality in the county went wet.
Florence was the first Lauderdale County city to introduce alcohol. They did so in 1981, but the law did not go into effect until 1984.
The letter from state auditors only showed fiscal records dating back to 2001.
State auditors sent a letter to Florence at the start of this year asking them to pay the $2.5 million in alcohol tax they've owed since 2001.
