To help Pennsylvania's counties ride through the economic recession, Gov. Ed Rendell yesterday proposed allowing counties except Allegheny and Philadelphia to impose an additional sales tax of up to 1 percent as a means of generating revenue.

But local counties say they aren't interested in charging higher taxes.

Under the proposal, the counties could share up to 50 percent of the additional revenue they collect from the levy with their municipalities, the governor said. At the moment, the state sales tax is 6 percent in most counties, except Allegheny and Philadelphia, which have a 7 percent sales tax.

"I believe that we should do more to help cities and counties address the budget challenges they face, and that's why I am proposing to give counties the ability to broaden their tax base by allowing them to impose a sales tax increase of up to 1 percent on top of the state sales tax, and share 50 percent of those proceeds with our hard-pressed cities," said Mr. Rendell.

But officials in four counties that border Allegheny were not quite as optimistic or impressed with Mr. Rendell's proposal.

"In these economic times that we're in, I don't see that imposing a higher sales tax will be in the interest of the people of Pennsylvania. I don't know that adding a 1 percent sales tax will solve our problems," said Westmoreland County Commissioner Tom Balya.

"[The governor's proposal] may be politically expedient in Harrisburg, but I don't think it would be very popular with many county commissioners around the state," he added.

Beaver County Commissioner Tony Amadio said "the concept sounds good," but he and others probably wouldn't support the plan unless the sales tax increase could be offset by a reduction elsewhere, like in property taxes, for example.

"I'm not for any new taxes in my county," he said.

Washington County Commissioner Lawrence Maggi aired similar sentiments, saying, "it's something that we would look at, but I'm always wary of raising new taxes."

The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, Mr. Maggi added, discussed the proposal with Mr. Rendell in recent months, but those discussions were conditioned on a sales tax increase offset by a property tax reduction.

"When we talked with the governor a few weeks ago, we understood that this plan would not be about creating a new tax," Mr. Maggi said.

For Butler County Commissioner Dale Pinkerton, Mr. Rendell's proposal seems to be dead on arrival, politically speaking.

"He wants to give us the power to do this because he doesn't want to do it," said Mr. Pinkerton. "In this economy, when everyone is struggling, nobody wants to see any kind of tax increase."