New GRT hike goes to voters Tuesday

Increase will raise $2.3M annually

Santa Fe County has raised the gross receipts tax rate nine times in the past 15 years, and voters next week will decide if another increase will take effect next year.

In June, the County Commission unanimously approved a one-eighth of one percent increase (0.125 cents on the dollar) to the GRT tax rate that will take effect Jan. 1. That tax is expected to raise $4.6 million a year.

In a kind of package deal, the commission also put an additional one-sixteenth of one percent increase (0.0625) on the ballot for a special election that will take place Tuesday. It would raise another $2.3 million annually.

Together, the two taxes would add 19 cents to every $100 spent at the cash register on most goods or ser-

vices, but not food or medicine.

For this election, all precincts are consolidated so people can cast ballots at any voting center they wish.

The revenue from the tax increases is intended to fund extra public safety personnel, including sheriff’s deputies, firefighters, corrections officers and emergency dispatchers. The funds will also go toward the creation of a behavioral health triage center somewhere within the Santa Fe city limits, County Manager Katherine Miller said.

If voters approve the additional one-sixteenth of one percent increase, the GRT in Santa Fe city limits will be 8.5 percent and 7.1875 percent in unincorporated parts of the county — the total rate also includes GRT increments that go to the state and to city government.

Edgewood residents would go to a 8.25 percent rate and people living in the portion of Española that’s in Santa Fe County would see a 9.125 percent rate, which would be the second-highest in the state behind the Taos Ski Valley, at 9.25 percent.

Miller said a few more firefighters and deputies could have been hired under the original 2018 budget, but added that the county needed more revenue after property tax collections flattened.

“(In) the original 2018 budget without any increase, we could hire three more deputies and three more firefighters, but our biggest concern was that we didn’t have any growth in our property taxes,” Miller said. “We could accommodate a few more public safety employees with a GRT increase.”

Some of the extra $6.9 million in annual revenue the two increases are expected to generate would go toward hiring a full-time staff member at the La Puebla fire department in the northeast part of the county, Commissioner Henry Roybal said. The small department, which is now fully staffed solely with volunteers, took over 1,200 emergency calls last year, Roybal said, and that number may continue to grow due to an aging population.

Although most of the services will benefit people living in unincorporated parts of the county, Miller said Santa Fe residents will benefit from the triage center and from any improvements made to the Regional Emergency Communications Center, which dispatches emergency responders for both the city and the county.

But Yvonne Chicoine, chairwoman of the county Republican Party, has been opposed to the tax increase and argues that the county has not justified it. “GRT builds on itself like a snowball, burdening our local businesses and taking its toll on our families at every turn,” Chicoine wrote in an op-ed that was published in the Journal on Aug. 25. “It hits those living on fixed incomes particularly hard. And it hampers economic growth, the only sustainable path to prosperity for all of us.”

She also notes the cumulative effects of tax increases, including a voter-approved property tax increase for Santa Fe Public Schools facilities in February and the Santa Fe City Council’s extension of another property tax, also earlier this year, and notes that the commission is raising county salaries.

Roybal, who represents the part of Española in Santa Fe County, said he was concerned for merchants in the area who may have to charge customers more, but that’s why the commission chose to put the onesixteenth of one percent increase to a vote.

Skye Quinn, co-owner of the Santa Cruz Country Store in Española, said she likes the idea of more public safety services in the area, but she’s not crazy about having a GRT over 9 percent.

“Will (customers) come here because they’re getting charged extra? I bet they will, but they probably won’t like it,” Quinn said. “It’s like a Catch 22. I’m for all those things, but we’ll have to charge our customers more.”

Past raises

In 2002, the GRT in Santa Fe was 6.4375 percent, 5.75 percent in Edgewood, 6.3125 percent in Española and 5.875 percent in the rest of the county.

The county imposed a capital outlay infrastructure tax of 0.25 percent in 2003 and raised the GRT rate four more times by 2007. A firefighting excise tax of 0.25 percent went into effect July 2013 and a “hold harmless” increase of 0.1250 percent began in 2015.

The 0.0625 increase imposed in January 2007 goes to the state for Medicaid and the 0.125 increase that started July 2009 goes toward the regional transit system. County Manager Miller said the county needed revenue to make up for the $3.1 million the state takes annually for Medicaid payments.