S.F. County plans special election on second hike

Voters to decide Sept. 19 whether to raise rate by additional one-sixteenth of a cent, effective Jan. 1

Santa Fe County voters will decide whether to add one-sixteenth of a percent to the county’s gross receipts tax rate in a special election Sept. 19, county commissioners decided Thursday.

The for-or-against ballot question will pit the promise of projected new revenue for county community services and public safety jobs against the tax aversion of those living in an area that already has one of the state’s highest gross receipts tax rates.

The coming election follows a unanimous decision by commissioners late last month to levy a one-eighth-of-a-cent increase on the countywide tax rate starting Jan. 1. That measure is expected to raise $4.6 million a year, which would fund more than 40 new positions, most in public safety. More than $1.5 million of the tax revenue would be put toward a behavioral health crisis center the county plans to build.

If voters approve the additional onesixteenth-of-a-cent measure in September, which also would go into effect Jan. 1, adding about 6 cents to a $100 purchase, the expected $2.3 million in annual revenue would provide for more than 20 new positions in public safety and community services, including nine firefighters and three sheriff ’s deputies. About $1 million would go to the planned crisis center.

City of Santa Fe voters in early May widely rejected Mayor Javier Gonzales’ proposal to tax sugar-sweetened beverages and put the revenue toward early childhood education programs. That special election fiercely divided the community and shattered campaign fundraising records. Political commit--

tees on both sides of the issue spent a total of $4 million, much of it from outside sources.

The county election in September is unlikely to match the intensity or spending totals of the city election, but it could face opposition.

At a joint city-county meeting on the proposed county tax increases in June, a chastened Gonzales sounded a warning note to commissioners as they weighed whether to raise the county’s gross receipts tax rate, a decision that would affect most business activity in the city.

“I think we’ve got a ways to go until we’re able to have a sense in this community that the taxation that occurs is truly one that provides a direct benefit back,” Gonzales said at the June 15 summit.

The county last raised the gross receipts tax rate two years ago, adding roughly an eighth of a cent.

If voters approve the onesixteenth percent increase, the tax rate within city limits would rise to 8.5 percent, and the rate in unincorporated parts of the county would rise to 7.1875 percent.

If the measure fails, the city tax rate would rise to 8.4375 percent after the eighth-of-a-cent increase takes effect Jan. 1, and the county rate would become 7.125 percent.

Regardless, the city rate will rank among the state’s highest for municipalities, and Santa Fe County would have the thirdhighest county rate in the state, behind only Los Alamos and Taos counties.

Steve Fresquez, with the state Bureau of Elections, said the cost of the special election has not yet been determined.

Commissioner Anna Hansen, who voted against the one-sixteenth increment at the board’s meeting in late June, said Thursday that the one-eighth increase was enough. She does not plan to advocate either for or against the additional increase, she said.

“We don’t need it; that was my feeling,” Hansen said. She, along with the other four commissioners, did vote in favor of the eighth-of-a-cent increase.

A ballot question in November asked county voters whether they would support a one-eighth-of-a-cent increase to raise revenue for behavioral health services; a majority indicated on their ballots that they were in favor of the tax hike.

“I felt like it was enough of a burden on the taxpayers to implement the eighth,” Hansen said, “but they approved it, so that was what I was willing to do.”

The state Taxation and Revenue Department told the county its proposed sixteenth-of-a-cent increment was subject to an optional referendum.

County Attorney Greg Shaffer wrote in a late June memo that he disagreed with the state agency’s position, saying his office does not believe the proposed increase was subject to any referendum requirement.

The commissioners ultimately decided to accept the state agency’s position, Shaffer said Thursday.

Yvonne Chicoine, chairwoman of the Santa Fe County Republican Party, said Thursday she was “perplexed” by what she described as the haste of the county to enact a second rate increase.

She declined to offer a prediction on how voters would cast their ballots, saying only that voters appeared to be increasingly energized.

“There is a question of too much,” Chicoine said.