Addendum

Cochise County Tax Hearing

All — a brief follow up to yesterday’s newsletter. And apologies to those subscribers outside of Cochise County for whom this is less relevant.

Every year on the third Monday of August, Arizona governments adopt their annual tax policies. Ahead of that vote they must hold a public hearing. Ours is tomorrow.

Many locals wrote in to say that they are worried about the proposed property tax increase but don’t feel educated enough about the county budget to make arguments against it. Frankly, I don’t have that education either. The budget plan is 105 pages long and one would probably need some assistance in making sense of the many budget items therein.

I’ve looked for any published documents or meeting minutes which might give reasoning for the proposed tax increase but haven’t turned anything up yet. I just wrote to the supervisors asking them to forward any relevant documents.

I was able to learn a few important things, however. First, I looked at the adopted tax rates over the last four years. In 2023 and 2020 there were no proposals for a property tax increase. In 2022 and 2021 there were proposals for a 2% increase, but they were both rejected by the supervisors in 3-0 and 2-1 votes.

An important and obvious takeaway is that just because there is a proposal on the books does not mean that all or any of the supervisors are supporting it.

The second thing I found was this year’s report from the Arizona Auditor General on the county’s 2023 budget.

In the above chart you can see that county revenue from property taxes has increased, presumably in response to increased property values. (Disclaimer: I am a layman in fiscal policy, so don’t expect an expert level analysis!) We can then surmise that property tax increases are not always necessary to generate more tax revenue.

This graphic shows that the county has been in the black for the last five years, even more so last year (and other slides in the report seem to indicate this is on account of increased federal funding in 2023).

So unless the supervisors are anticipating some kind major increase in expenses, or decrease in revenues elsewhere, it’s not obvious that we need a property tax increase, nor that the supervisors will pass one.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be useful to show up at the hearing tomorrow and express your concerns or opinions about the proposed increase. For my part, I’d like to see a more digestible presentation of the county budget, so that we can all have a better understanding of how the county operates fiscally.

The hearing is tomorrow at 10am (see notice) at the Board of Supervisors Hearing Room:
1415 MELODY LANE, BUILDING G, BISBEE, AZ 85603

Remember that a speaker request form must be submitted online or in person at least one hour in advance of the meeting (9am).

Feel free to write in to the Ground Party Papers with any thoughts on the matter.

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