MOHAVE COUNTY -A proposal to reduce the primary property tax rate and replace the revenue with a quarter cent sales tax died at Monday’s Mohave County board of supervisors meeting in Kingman. It was District 5 Supervisor Ron Gould who fired the missile that torpedoed the tax reform.
Gould told board members he despises property taxes and supports the notion of reducing them through a sales tax hike. He explained, however, that he cannot support the plan because future boards of supervisors could unravel the current board’s intent and kick the property tax rate back up.
“I’ve seen this happen. It happened in Lake Havasu City,” Gould said. “They said you know what if we institute a sales tax so we can reduce your property tax and then pretty soon we were at maximum property tax and maximum sales tax and I don’t want to see that happen county-wide.”
County Manager Sam Elters pleaded for guidance before the board approved tentative adoption of a total budget of $508-million.
“Please give us some direction,” Elters said. “If indeed this approach is an unacceptable one, we’ll revamp it.”
Board Chairman Buster Johnson told Elters he provided his direction weeks ago.
“If you recall, when we had this other hearing, I said you’re not going to get this sales tax and I said bring us back another budget,” Johnson said.
Tentative budget adoption came with staff direction to prepare separate spending plans for final adoption on Aug. 2. One budget should basically mirror the $1.90 property tax levy in the current spending plan and the second option would involve a lower levy of about $1.82 per $100 of assessed valuation.
District 2 supervisor Hildy Angius pulled an item from the consent agenda to express her concern about the Mohave Valley Elementary School maintenance and budget override proposal to be decided in Nov. Angius pointed out that district voters rejected a similar question last fall.
“It failed spectacularly 60% to 39 %. So now the district is spending more district money to put it back on the ballot,” Angius said. “I’m just going to be honest, I think it’s sneaky. I do. It’s using district money. They want to do an override and think they’re going to keep having elections until they get it.”
The board was merely asked to approve the district’s request to conduct the election by mail rather than at polling places, a move elections director Allen Tempert said would save the district roughly $17,000. Angius objects to state law that requires board oversight when she believes the school district should decide its election matter itself.
Similarly, each year Angius objects when state law requires supervisors to approve secondary property tax rates set by special districts. Angius has said she doesn’t like being put in a position of seemingly endorsing tax rates set by others, and in this case, ratifying the election processing decision of an outside entity.
Dave Hawkins
