FRANKLIN COUNTY — The Franklin County Board Tuesday night approved a resolution to put a sales tax referendum on the April 2 ballot.

County Board Chairman Randall Crocker:

The preliminary cost for this project will be in the $15 million range. It calls for current courthouse on the Benton Square to be torn down with a new courthouse being built there and complete renovations to the Campbell Building and move the county clerk and treasurer’s office there.

The county is also looking at temporarily relocating the circuit clerk’s office and all courts to the vacant antiques building on the east side of the square until the new courthouse is finished.

Two sales tax proposals for a new courthouse have been turned down in recent years. Crocker says state statute allows for a sales tax to be created exclusively for public facility purposes like a courthouse and nothing else.

Crocker says the sales tax will be eliminated when the courthouse project is paid off. If the referendum passes, Crocker says work would immediately start and be finished in 24 months.