With the deadline looming to place a half-cent sales-tax increase on the November ballot, the City Council voted 6-2 on Wednesday to put the measure before voters. The ordinance involves a five-year hike in local sales tax and is tied to various financial reform measures. “It’s kind of a compromise and an agreement,” said Darren Pudgil, a spokesman with Mayor Jerry Sanders’ office. “We know that reforms alone will not enable us to protect and restore city services, so it’s essentially reforms before revenue. It’s a combination package.” The reforms tied to the potential sales-tax raise include changes to retirement plans for city officials, a second-tier pension plan for firefighters and kickstarting the process to privatize the city’s information technology services and the Miramar Landfill. Pudgil said the proposed ballot measure would require the city to meet those reforms before any money is collected from the sales tax increase. “It’s a very comprehensive reform package that must be put in place,” Pudgil said. The City Council has held three special hearings in a five-day span to discuss the increase. At the most recent meeting yesterday, the council voted to approve a revised version of the ordinance presented by the city attorney. With the council approval, the proposed sales-tax hike will now be put before voters on Nov. 2. Pudgil said the five-year temporary tax would raise an estimated $103 million per year that the city would put toward city services, including fire, police and street resurfacing. “It will be used to eliminate the rolling fire brownouts and it will be used to restore and protect essential city services,” Pudgil said. District 1 Councilwoman Sherri Lightner voted for placing the sales tax increase on the ballot and gave her support to the item last week. Lightner expressed that a key point for her vote was making sure that the financial reforms were guaranteed before the tax was implemented. While the half-cent sales-tax increase idea comes closer to the ballot box, the proposal for a new City Hall was taken off the ballot last week. On July 30, Sanders vetoed the City Council’s plans to put the project on the November ballot. Pudgil said the developers for the project asked Sanders to remove it from the ballot, citing a lack of resources. “It’s a very complicated issue and communicating that effectively to the public would have taken a significant amount of money,” Pudgil said.