Jefferson County could be on the verge of bankruptcy if the Alabama Legislature does not renew the county’s occupational tax, all five county commissioners said in their Thursday work session.

The commissioners seemed to be in agreement — an unusual occurrence lately — that if the Legislature does not rewrite and pass the enabling legislation for the tax, a class action lawsuit could revoke it.

Without a renewal, the half-percent tax will expire in 2008, and also at issue is whether an effort to repeal the tax in 1999 was in fact legal.

In 1999, Rep. Arthur Payne sponsored a bill to repeal the tax. However a court later ruled that a quorum of the legislators was not present at the time, and hence, the vote was invalid. Since then, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature sets its own rules and that the practice of voting with “implied quorums” is legal. Hundreds of laws have been passed with less than half of the legislators present.

A class-action law suit could not only invalidate the tax, but also require the county to pay back as much as $400 million of occupational taxes collected since the 1999 bill passed. The tax provides Jefferson County with as much as $65 million a year, Commission President Bettye Fine Collins said in the meeting.

Already the commission has received at least two letters requesting repayment. Those letters were written as form letters, and except for the signatures and contact information, they are identical.

Today, Barbara Wilson, who signed one of the letters, said that she had not written it. Rather, someone had brought it by her workplace. She said she did not know the person, but that people at work called him “Buck.”

Her description of the man matches Gilbert Klein, who sometimes goes by his nicknames “Buck” or “Buckwheat,” when calling local talk radio shows. Efforts to reach Klein have been unsuccessful.

Whether Wilson wrote the letter didn’t seem to matter to Commissioner Larry Langford.

“If you read the letter, she is stupid as the day is long,” Langford said in the meeting.

The commissioners agreed to encourage the Jefferson County legislative delegation to pass a new law authorizing the tax retroactively. Commissioner Jim Carns said that legislators should pass a new bill and not use a “Christmas tree approach,” where the old law would be amended.

Commissioner Bobby Humphryes said that he had already talked to the homebuilders association about the importance of the tax and a new law.

“The intention is to pass a clean bill,” he said.

Last week, Collins reversed her support to build a new 40,000-seat arena at the BJCC, saying that she could not commit the money to the project if the occupational tax were in jeopardy. The county currently pays $10 million per year to the BJCC, but those payments are set to expire in 2008.

The Alabama Legislature is on break this week for AEA holidays, known in most other places simply as “spring break.”

Of course, the commission will have to pinch its pennies anyway. Last week, Commissioner Collins said that the county would have to borrow as much as $100 million to meet this year’s budget. Where ever could that money have gone?

— Kyle Whitmire

RELATED: JeffCo Swap Meet, and Dome Deal Left Undone