(KAIR)--State Representative Jerry Henry took some time to visit with the Atchison County Commission during their meeting Tuesday afternoon to update Commissioners on key events of the past legislative session as well as to request funding in his role as Executive Director of Achievement Services.

Henry said the money requested from the Commission would go a long way towards helping clients of Achievement Services. “We have a number of people that we serve in our program that are not eligible for any federal or state funding. They have mild disabilities...they need a little bit of help in their daily lives. We also use it to help fund some of our transportation programs, buying vans and stuff like that because you cannot use any federal or state funding for transportation programs...and then we need things throughout the year, little things that come up, miscellaneous that the federal government won't fund.”

Henry also focused his discussion on the last bill passed by legislators, raising the sales and cigarette taxes. He said that “we just talked about how difficult that is for border communities such as Atchison, and we have to compete with Missouri both on the sales tax level and also on the cigarette level. I've got a couple of employers in town that I have talked to, and they are going to kind of keep me updated as to what is happening there. Then, also, we talked about this new bill, the property tax bill that goes into effect in 2018 how...a lot of legislators think it's necessary, but it is going to cause some issues for the County Commissioners in the future.”

Henry says that he voted against the bill “mainly because of the border issues and also because I felt it was a fairness issue...taxation has to be fair and equal in my point of view.”

Henry also told Commissioners that a lot of legislators wanted to reinstate some of the income tax cuts that were put in the bill for businesses, but supporters could not get enough votes to make it happen.