The Pima County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved budget and tax increases for 2015-2016 fiscal year.

Supervisors Sharon Bronson, Richard Elias, and Ramon Valadez voted in favor of the county budget for next year of $1.17 billion which forces another increase in property taxes.

Rather than hold down costs significantly, the County’s various departments only reduced their expenses by 2 percent.

Pima County residents will have had their taxes raised 28 percent in the past 3 years. Chuck Huckelberry, Pima County Administrator’s plan includes an increase of the primary property tax rate of 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.

Pima County already had a very high property tax, but continues to buy up expanses of “open space” which results in taking that land off the tax rolls, forcing other properties’ tax burden up.

Supervisor Richard Elias said there’s one caveat. That’s whether the county wins a lawsuit claiming a provision of the state budget unconstitutionally requiring Pima County to pay some of the Tucson Unified School District’s taxes.

After the board adopted the new fiscal year’s budget, the board also passed a resolution that says if the county prevails in its legal action or if the legislature repeals the new law in a special session before the county levies the new tax rate in August, the board will repeal the 11-cent primary property tax increase.

Supervisor Ramón Valadez blamed state legislators for the increase. He said the budget is “not Pima County deciding its own fate, this is the state of Arizona deciding our fate for us.”

Supervisors Ray Carroll and Ally Miller voted against the budget and tax increase. Miller said increasing property taxes will be a blow to the county’s economic prospects. “As the County increases taxes…businesses are moving out,” she said. “Businesses are not going to come to a county with the highest tax rate and we’ve seen proof of that by looking at what’s going on in Maricopa County versus Pima County,” said Miller.

Pima County is home to the fifth poorest metropolitan area in the country.

In addition to the tax increases today, in April, the Pima County Board of Supervisors, in a 4-1 vote (Supervisor Miller, the sole dissenting vote) also approved a resolution to place another tax increasing bond measure on the November ballot.

The measures on the general election ballot include:

• Proposition 425: Road and Highway Improvements
• Proposition 426: Economic Development, Libraries, and Workforce Training
• Proposition 427: Tourism Promotion
• Proposition 428: Parks and Recreation
• Proposition 429: Public Health, Welfare, Safety, Neighborhoods and Housing
• Proposition 430: Natural Area Conservation and Historic Preservation
• Proposition 431: Flood Control and Drainage

On Monday, the ‘Yes on Pima County Bonds”, an independent coalition committed to passing all seven propositions launched with Ray Carroll, and several other supervisors attending. On Monday the campaign co-chairs were announced. They include:

• * Mara Aspinall, former President and CEO, Ventana Medical Systems
  * Joseph Blair, Executive Director, Blair Charity Group
  * Carolyn Campbell, Executive Director, Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection
  * Larry Hecker, attorney, managing partner, Hecker PLLC
  * Lisa Lovallo, Chair, Board of Directors, Southern Arizona Leadership Council
  * Edmund Marquez, owner, Edmund Marquez Allstate Agencies
  * Tom McGovern, Chairman of the Board, Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce
  * Nancy Schlegel, President, Reid Park Zoological Society

Visit Yes On Pima County Bonds for more information.

There is also a ‘Vote No on Pima Bonds’ coalition formed, committed to stopping all seven propositions. The coalition group is called Taxpayers Against Pima Bonds. This group argues that the initial $815 Million Bonds adds an estimated $809 million additional costs in interest, operating and maintenance costs, that the County doesn’t include, making the real world costs closer to $1.6 billion, a debt that would be tagged onto the County’s current $1.4 billion estimated debt.

So Caveat Voter, Voter Beware – the County is looking to have more of your money.

On Friday, the Goldwater Institute sent the following letter to Pima County Supervisors stating that gifting portions of their office budget to nonprofit groups as has been common practice in the County is against the law.

Supervisor Ally Miller brought this to the County Supervisors attention and asked for the practice to cease. The Goldwater Institute agrees with Supervisor Miller and respectfully requests with this letter that the Pima County Board of Supervisors adopt a policy ending these illegal gifts.

The Goldwater attorneys make a simple point, the funds do not belong to the Supervisors; they belong to the taxpayers and should follow the gifting procedures by resolution of the Board of Supervisors if they are to being donated.

Many would like to see these funds reimbursed to the taxpayers and since being notified any future gifts could be subject to legal recourse.

The text of this letter follows:

October 10, 2014

Sharon Bronson, Chair, Supervisor District 3
Pima County Board of Supervisors
130 W. Congress Street, 11th Floor
Tucson, AZ 8570 I
Fax: (520) 884-1152

SENT VIA US MAIL AND FAX
Re: Pima County Board of Supervisors’ gifts to nonprofit groups

Dear Chairperson Bronson:

It has come to the Goldwater lnstitute’s attention that members of the Pima County Board
of Supervisors have gifted portions of their office budgets to nonprofit groups. For instance, Tim Steller recently reported in the Arizona Daily Star that Supervisor Richard Elias unilaterally gifted more than $13,299 of taxpayer funds over the last two years to a single nonprofit group. It is our understanding that this is not an isolated incident but a common practice among many members of the Board.

If our understanding is correct, this practice very clearly violates the Arizona
Constitution. Specifically, the Arizona Constitution mandates: “Neither the state, nor any county, city, town, municipality, or other subdivision of the state shall ever give or loan its credit in the aid to: or make any donation or grant, by subsidy or otherwise, to any individual association, or corporation . . . “ARIZ. CONST. ART. IX,§ 7 (emphasis added). The Arizona Supreme Court has held that this provision prohibits governments from making public expenditures without receiving adequate consideration in return. Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that “indirect benefits” are not consideration under the Gift Clause. See Turken v. Gordon, 223 Ariz. 342, 349 (20 I 0). Pima County does not receive adequate consideration indeed it apparently receives no consideration, when supervisors donate public funds to the charities of their choice. As a result, these office budget gifts are unconstitutional.

Under our state constitution, Arizonans are guaranteed that local special interests will not
receive preferential treatment under the law. Taxpayers likewise are guaranteed that public money will be spent only for public purposes and that adequate consideration will be received for the expenditure of any public funds. Supervisors unilaterally gifting taxpayer funds from their individual office budgets contravenes these basic constitutional principles.

Moreover, please note that under certain circumstances public officials who make
unlawful expenditures of public funds may be civilly liable for those expenditures. See ARIZ. REV. STAT.§§ 35-154, 35-196 (2012).

The Goldwater Institute respectfully requests that the Pima County Board of Supervisors adopt a policy ending these illegal gifts. lf we do not receive confirmation within the next thirty days that the Board intends to adopt such a policy, we will avail ourselves of other legal remedies available to us. We have concurrently submitted a public records request pursuant to ARIZ. REV. STAT.§§ 39-121to39-128, so that we will be able to assess the full extent of the constitutional violations committed thus far.

We appreciate your thoughtful consideration of these matters and look forward to hearing
from you.
Sincerely,
Attorney Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation
at the Goldwater Institute
cc. Barbara La Wall (Pima County Attorney)
Ally Miller (Supervisor District 1)
Ramon Valadez (Supervisor District 2)
Ray Carroll (Supervisor District 4)
Richard Elias (Supervisor District 5)
Robin Brigode (Clerk of the Board)
Arizona Attorney General ‘s Office

Residents of Pima County’s District 1 are fighting back over the recent decision of Pima County Supervisors to take all the road funds away from their district. As one resident expressed in an email being circulating to all District 1 residents, “Those who pay the most get the least! They’ve made it personal, when the Board of Supervisors took money from our District to repair roads and put it in another District and no doubt it was because Ally (Miller) has been calling attention to the wasteful spending in Pima County.”

The act from all accounts appears to have been political retaliation when the Pima County Board of Supervisors at their February 18, 2014 meeting, voted 4:1 to redistribute all of District 1’s $872,000 road funds for the remainder of the year into District 4 for road repairs along Colossal Cave Road. In an unprecedented act, Supervisor Richard Elias (District 5) made the motion to move the funds to District 4 “for the children of District 4” and motion was seconded by Supervisor Ramon Valdez (District 2).

Residents of District 1 were left to wonder why road repairs for children in one district held more importance than children in another district. When surely road repairs that have waited as long as 28 years in some cases in District 1 are equally important in both districts as are the children. However, the roads repairs for residents and children of District 1 were put on hold.

The political retaliation came after Supervisor Miller had requested a discussion of unused budgetary items that could possibly be reallocated toward road repair in the whole county before fiscal year end. Not a small amount either, Miller claims she can point to $100 million within the current budget that could be reallocated toward road repairs. Miller’s recommendations were never fully heard however by the other board members, instead the other members acted precariously and in apparent collusion as retribution for this act.

Residents of District 1 are upset and fighting back this week through numerous emails from neighborhood associations and written complaints filed with Arizona Attorney General’s office. Individual supervisors are held personally responsible for open meeting law violations and any fines levied if found guilty, we were told by the AG’s office.

Statistical data for Pima County indicates the residents of District 1 (Sup. Ally Miller) have good reason to be upset. Their district pays the most billable tax revenue in the county, 33% of the total tax revenue collected, or $310 million. The next closest tax producer is District 4 (Sup. Ray Carroll) that pays $215 million, $100 million less than District 1, but still 23% of the total county revenue.

These two districts (District 1 and 4) combined, account for 56% of the total county tax revenue collected, with the remaining three districts in aggregate accounting for the remaining 44% of tax revenue.

The net tax billed per district uses the 2015 parcel list and matches it to the 2013 tax roll as shown in the following pie graph.

The number of properties per district based on the 2015 property roll (not tax roll). 2013 parcel information and its associated board district are no longer available.

A group has been formed to fight back the mismanagement of tax dollars in Pima County. To contact these citizen activists email fixpimaroad@gmail.com as they encourage everyone to get involved.