Funding sought for two sheriff’s boats

County supervisors discuss budgets with directors

The Yuma County Board of Supervisors directed county grants staff to pursue funding for two boats for the sheriff’s department to use on Martinez Lake during a budget hearing Thursday.

On the second of two days spent discussing department budgets with directors who were generally satisfied with what they’d been allotted by the staff-recommended budget, it was one of the board members who brought up the left-out expense that got the most traction.

The YCSO has four motorboats for patrolling the river, but all are at least 10 years old and near the end of their lifespan, said District 3 Supervisor Darren Simmons, who had attended a Martinez Lake homeowners’ meeting the night before.

The county’s purchases of boats and other water-related equipment used to be funded through grants from the State Lake Improvement Fund, but that money’s been diverted to other uses in recent years, Simmons said.

Only one of the boats is currently usable, though the department hopes to have another one out of the shop and on the water for the upcoming summer. “I was just wondering if there was some way we could get two new boats, so they’re not spending money they don’t have, to keep what they have operating,” Simmons said.

County Administrator Susan Thorpe said two new 47-foot-long patrol boats would cost $80,000 each.

District 5 Supervisor Russell McCloud said he wanted to see a plan from the YCSO on how it planned to patrol the lake this summer during the next budget meeting. “We still have room on the 21st to maneuver, right? After that we’ll adopt, and we won’t have that,” he said.

The board is scheduled to adopt its tentative budget May 21, which sets a cap on what can be spent during the upcoming 201819 fiscal year. The final budget, which can be the same size or smaller than the tentative one, is set for approval on June 18.

The board also went over the major capital improvements on deck for next year, including flood control district projects that may or may not get accom-

plished.

The flood control district covers the entire county, but is technically a separate entity funded by its own property tax rate, collected by the county along with county property tax and library district tax.

The board is planning to reduce the flood control and library debt service rates slightly and shift that over to the general fund, leaving the overall tax rate the same.

This was partly done because the flood control district has about $19.6 million sitting in its account, accumulating as long-planned projects to reduce flooding in trouble spots get pushed back due to one type of delay or another.

District 2 Supervisor Martin Porchas, who along with Simmons and District 5 Supervisor Lynne Pancrazi is going through his second county budgeting process since getting elected to the board, noted that a project completed in Somerton last year had been 10 years in the making.

“It really concerns me to see that much money, and still collecting tax on it, and not seeing projects getting moved as quickly as I think they should be. The Smucker Park retention basin, how long has that been going on?” he asked, to peals of laughter from several longtime county officials.

County Engineer Roger Patterson said the county signed its first intergovernmental agreement with the city of Yuma on that project in 1987.

After several design changes and other issues, much of which had to be approved by the Arizona Department of Water Resources, Patterson said he hopes to break ground on the $8.6 million basin within the coming fiscal year, but changes to the final agreement requested by the county could take a month to six months to get approval from the ADWR.

Long-running projects like these are why the flood control money tends to pile up, Board Chairman Tony Reyes said.

“They’re complex projects but the question still goes back to, OK, if we have a tax rate that brings in a certain amount of money, and it starts to accumulate because projects aren’t getting done, it becomes what it became this year, it became an avenue to advantage the total taxpayer,” he said.

The total recommended budget for 2018-19 is $259 million, including a general operating fund of $85.2 million (plus about $14 million in reserve funding), special revenue funding (including countywide districts, improvement districts and other funds) of $144.3 million, capital expenditures of $8.2 million and debt service funds of $6.8 million.