Pima County homeowners would see no increase in their property tax rates in the next fiscal year under the $1.24 billion budget proposal released Wednesday.
Nevertheless, many property owners would pay more in taxes because their assessed valuations are rising an average of 3.3 percent. That will mean an increase of $10.3 million in property tax revenues, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said in his budget memo to the Board of Supervisors.
The budget calls for "general fund" spending of $627.7 million, or 1 percent more than the current fiscal year's budget. The general fund is used for daily operating expenses for county departments that don't generate their own revenues.
Huckelberry said in his memo that his budget recommendation "continues the conservative approach to budgeting that has been followed since the start of the last recession over nine years ago." In that time, the county has reduced its work force, while raising property taxes and other fees.
The proposal for 2017-18 includes $3 million for repairs and maintenance of main thoroughfares, and Huckelberry said in his memo it could be more under a plan on which his staff is working. Road and street repairs have been a sore point with county residents and were a significant issue in last November's Board of Supervisors' election campaigns.
A sore point for Huckelberry in county finances has been the state Legislature's actions to pass along state costs to counties and take away revenues that he and others said are due to the counties. He used the occasion of his budget memo to renew his complaint.
"State cost shifts continue to pose a significant challenge to the county’s budget," he said in the memo. "In recent years, the state began to shift significant costs to Pima County and the other counties in Arizona. The current budget includes state cost shifts totaling $86 million, or 26 percent of the existing primary property tax rate."
The Board of Supervisors will hold public hearings on the budget over the next three weeks. A vote on tentative adoption is scheduled for May 23, and final adoption is scheduled for June 20.
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