FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The sales tax ball is now in Mayor Tim Kant’s court.

He has 10 days to veto the 2 percent sales tax passed by the City Council Monday night in a 3-2 vote.

Council members Rick Kingrea, Lonnie Mixon and Dan Stankoski voted for the tax, and Council President Debbie Quinn and Councilman Mike Ford voted against it.

A 4-1 vote of the council would be required to override any veto.

If the Monday vote count remains the same during an override procedure, Kant’s veto would stand.

“(The mayor) told us two months ago that he would not oppose the tax,” said Councilman Rick Kingrea, who wrote a detailed letter to the editor in Saturday’s Fairhope Courier explaining why he believed a sales tax was necessary. “If he vetoes it now, he needs to give us some clue as to where the money’s going to come from to solve our financial problems. We won’t be able to pass the (ordinance) over his veto now.”

Kant is on vacation and expected to return to the office on May 7, his assistant said Tuesday.

That might be the last day to veto the new sales tax law, unless weekends are not counted in the 10-day period, said the city attorney Tuesday, who has not researched the issue yet.

The council had an extensive debate on the sale tax proposal before a standing-room only audience.

Prior to that discussion, Quinn spoke in favor of a resolution that would have required city staff to report to the council at its May 11 meeting with ideas on ways to cut the budget.

“Maybe we haven’t done our due diligence yet,” said Quinn, referring to alternatives to a sales tax to remedy the city’s financial challenges.

Quinn encouraged the council to wait two weeks to vote on the issue, but that resolution failed for lack of a second on a motion to pass it.

“It seems there have been years that these (ideas) could been looked at,” said Mixon, who is chairman of the finance committee and a main supporter of the tax proposal. “But you cannot cut enough to bring us what we need. The next thing you’re going to cut is services and people.”

Stankoski said that the city’s “financial dilemma has been festering since 2003 when $1.7 million was borrowed from bond money to pay the bills. This was a red flag that the utilities cannot pay the bills for 16,000 residents and that action should have been taken before today. I don’t see any proposals or solutions.”

Stankoski said that if Kant vetoes the tax he needs to present a plan for how the city’s financial problems will be handled.

“The mayor has all the resources at his disposal,” Stankoski said. “We’ve put our proposal forward. He needs to show us how he’s going to balance the budget. But so far I haven’t seen a single proposal or solution from him.”

Kingrea said that unless something is done such as passing the sales tax, the city will end the year with a deficit of between $1 million and $1.5 million.

“We’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and all of a sudden Peter doesn’t have any money,” said Kingrea, referring to the inability of the city’s utilities to support the general fund to the degree it has in the past.

The sales tax ordinance will take effect June 1. The council also passed a ordinance restricting how the tax income will be allocated.

That ordinance requires that one-half of the taxes collected be deposited to the general fund, and one-half into a general reserve account.

That account will be “specifically designated as a Special Tax Reserve Account, until such date that deposits equal or exceed 20 percent of the general fund budgeted revenue for the fiscal year in which target deposit amount is achieved,” the new law states. “Funds in this Special Tax Reserve Account are to be used for emergencies only, including, but not limited to, storm damage repair to city streets, parks, and buildings, as approved by the vote of the council.”

The council amended the proposed sales tax ordinance to require that the council review the tax proceeds at the end of each year instead of every three years, to determine whether the tax is still needed, or needs to be adjusted. The original ordinance required that be done every three years.

During a report on city finances, Treasurer Nancy Wilson said the city’s reserve account was approximately $1.9 million at the end of March and that $400,000 from that account had been used to pay general operating expenses in April.

“This is our supposed reserve account that we’re actually using as an operating account,” Kingrea said. “It’s a joke for us to call our reserve fund a reserve. It’s an operating account.”

During the debate on the sales tax, Quinn said that reports estimating the tax would generate $7.8 million annually were based on Foley statistics, which have a higher density of large retail businesses than Fairhope. She said, based on her research, the actual amount raised by the tax each year would be between $4 and $5 million.

In other business, the council:

• Approved an emergency bid for equipment to repair a water well that failed Monday morning. “This emergency exists due to the fact that this is one of the primary pumps that supplies water to Thomas Hospital,” a letter presented to the council by Dan McCrory, superintendent of the water and sewer department, stated.

McCrory said the repairs would cost approximately $60,000 and that bids for the repairs might be opened as early as Friday, he said.

“I felt it was very important that we get this fixed right away,” he said.

• Delayed action on a request by the Baldwin County Sewer Service to run sewer lines to a subdivision west of State Highway 181, which the Planning and Zoning Commission approved earlier this month. The council asked the company to submit its request in writing and said the item would be on the next work session agenda, which will occur prior to the May 25 council meeting.

A BCSS representative also said the company intends to make an offer to purchase the city’s entire sewer system in the near future. He said the sewer system is operating at an $800,000 loss per year. “We’re going to take the (financial) information we’ve received (from the city) and make a presentation to you,” he said.