Pima County is asking taxpayers to make up for the 16.3 percent shrinkage of the property tax base since 2009. County administrator Chuck Huckelberry is asking the residents of the 8th poorest metropolitan area in the nation to dig a little deeper so that he can avoid making cuts to bloated County departments.
Because it is collecting far less in overall property taxes from businesses and homeowners, the County expects to collect only $382 million through the closing of this fiscal year.
Huckelberry highlighted the expenses for law enforcement in an effort to raise support from taxpayers, based on fear, in order to sell a 28-cent increase in the primary property tax rate.
The secondary tax rate is recommended to increase in the Library District by 6 cents and the Flood Control District by 4 cents.
The budget also recommends nine “decision package”s for consideration by the Board of Supervisors that would add an additional 33 cents to the combined property tax rate. The packages are designed to almost impossible to refuse and meet the the political needs of supervisors by focusing on popular items such as indigent defense, information technology, wildcat dump enforcement and road repair.
A budget hearing is scheduled for May 20, when the Board will set an upper “ceiling” for the budget, which caps the total budget allocation as well as the proposed property tax levy. Final budget adoption is scheduled for June 17.
You can review the budget at http://webcms.pima.gov/cms/One.aspx?portalId=169&pageId=36498