If Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry gets his way, County residents will have had their taxes raised 28 percent in the past 3 years. Huckelberry is asking the Pima County Supervisors to approve his plan next month.
That plan includes an increase of the primary property tax rate about $.11 per $100 assessed value, an increase of about $.06 in the library district tax, and a $.01 increase in the flood control district tax.
Huckelberry acknowledges that Pima County already has a very high property tax, but continues to buy up expanse of “open space” which results in taking that land off the tax rolls, forcing other properties’ tax burden up.
In a memo dated April 30, Huckelberry writes, “Like all governments in Arizona, Pima County has necessarily adjusted to reduced revenues and increased service demands during the economic recession. More than seven years ago, at the beginning of the recession, Pima County began taking actions in response to declining resources and an increasingly uncertain operating environment. Department and agency budgets have been incrementally reduced over time… The cumulative effect of these departmental budget reductions has been substantial. General Fund supported departments have been reduced 11.5 percent, except the Sheriff’s Office, which was reduced only 2.5 percent. In addition to these reductions, departments were required to absorb the impact of salary increases awarded by the Board of Supervisors in FY 2015.”
According to Huckelberry, in FY 2015, the General Fund balance had been “reduced to the minimum desirable,” yet a property tax rate increase was still required “to bring the budget into structural balance with expenditures.”
Huckelberry writes that the primary property tax base in Pima County will increase in FY 2015/16 and it is “expected that the property tax base will continue to increase modestly for the next few years.”
In April, the Pima County Board of Supervisors, in a 4-1 vote approved a resolution to place another tax increasing bond measure on the November ballot.
To read Pima County – Huckelberry FY2016 budget memo, click here.
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