FERRIDAY — Voters in Ferriday will head to the polls this month to decide if they want to keep sales taxes where they are or to lower them.

Not renewing the tax would lower sales tax by it by three-quarters of a cent for every dollar spent.

The .75 percent sales tax was originally passed 10 years ago, and is up for renewal March 27.

All of the monies generated by the tax go into the town’s general fund, Ferriday Town Clerk Gayle Cowan said.

“It is for the operation of the town,” she said.

Currently, the sales tax rate in Ferriday is 8.75 per cent, and not renewing the tax would reduce the sales tax rate to 8 per cent.

The tax was originally introduced to combat escalating costs the town faced, Mayor Glen McGlothin said.

“Before that, things didn’t cost as much,” he said. “We had to raise it because everything skyrocketed.”

McGlothin said maintaining the tax is important for the town’s operations, and he believes voters will understand that the tax on the ballot is nothing new.

“If it doesn’t get renewed, I guess I will have to ask Vidalia or the parish to take us over, because with the loss of this money and the loss of Walmart (in 2006), we won’t have any operating money,” he said.

“Without this sales tax, we would be in terrible shape.”

Officials at the Concordia Parish Registrar of Voter’s Office said that early voting in the sales tax election — the only ballot measure in Concordia Parish for March 27 — would begin next Saturday.

Early voting does not require an excuse, as absentee voting would, and any registered voter in an election area can do it.

Early voting will be conducted in the registrar of voter’s office between the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 13-20.