In order to shore up money to pay for construction costs and school improvements---Bay County School Board members discussed bringing back the half cent sales tax during Tuesday's school board meeting.

If you remember, voters first approved the half-cent tax in 1998, for a period of 10-years in order to fund school improvements. When it came up for another vote in 2008, voters defeated it. So school board members raised property taxes to make up for the shortfall.

Wanting to shed more light on the issue and receive more public input over the next few weeks, board members decided in-favor to explore bringing the half cent sales tax back for school renovations and construction projects.

"One of our goals is to somehow relieve the burden of property taxes and we have spoken to many property owners and they want their taxes cut and the only way we can do that is to get a half cent sales tax to alleviate some of that burden," said Bay District Superintendent, Bill Husfelt. Supt. Husfelt said he remains hopeful property taxes could go down if the half cent sales tax is reinstated, however, there is absolutely no guarantee. Husfelt also told NewsChannel 7 the sales tax will only be relegated for school improvements and will not be used for teacher or employee salaries.