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Cost: One-fourth cent per dollar

What it's for: Additional revenue to pay off $536 million in school construction

Pros: It would ease the burden on those who pay property taxes.

Cons: Despite being sensible and necessary, it is still a tax increase.

Our take: Of all people, a conservative Republican county commissioner, Billy Yow, has been the most visible and ardent supporter of a quarter-cent sales-tax increase.

Even when the sales tax failed at the polls in May, Yow wouldn't let it die and is still making the case for it on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Good for him. It takes political courage to champion a tax increase in any form, but Yow realizes the overall good it would do. Now he has company, among them two respected community leaders, Shirley Frye of Greensboro and Jim Morgan of High Point, who are co-chairing a committee that promotes the sales tax.

For a relatively painless cost, the additional sales tax would provide critical revenue for the county by adding 25 cents to every $100 purchase. It would exclude prescription drugs and unprepared food.

The tax is expected to raise $15 million a year, an estimated 40 percent of it from nonresidents of Guilford County. Further, the county commissioners officially pledged to spend the money for Guilford Schools and GTCC bonds voters passed in May. "It's important that the money has a direction now," Yow says.

Of course, this is not a legally binding promise. But any commissioner who reneged would have to answer to the voters.

Finally, and as importantly, the sales-tax increase would ease the load placed on property taxes, which will pay for the lion's share of the bonds. This doesn't mean the need for property tax increases would go away, but those increases would likely be smaller if the additional sales tax is approved.

There's no question any tax increase is a tough sell, even tougher in a trying economy. But this one is smart, prudent and fair.