Prop 411: Road tax plan up to voters
Additional half-cent would be used to fix city streets
Yuma voters are being asked to decide whether they want to pay an additional half-cent sales tax to fix city roads. The citizens initiative, called Proposition 411, is on the general election ballot. Voters can cast their vote on Nov. 6 or by early voting, which began Oct. 10.
A “yes” vote supports increasing the city’s sales tax by one-half of one percent effective Jan. 19 “solely for the purpose of fixing potholes, improving existing roads and replacing asphalt.”
A “no” vote supports leaving the current tax rate.
If Yuma voters approve the road tax, the levy would raise about $10 million annually, enough to fix 20 miles of city roads per year.
Yuma resident Becky Naquin supports the tax increase because she’s tired of potholes damaging her cars. She lives on Arizona Avenue and says she has to play “shuffle” to avoid potholes. “And just when you think you’ve missed them, you hit one, jarring your spine.”
Naquin recalls one incident that happened as she headed to Visit Yuma’s Date Night event. She had her tires changed the day before, but as she headed to the event her car hit a pothole. “My brand-new tire when ‘splat.’” She said she has recently spent about $2,000 in tire replacements.
Her family owns a farm and an earthmoving company, but she clarifies that they do not do paving and would not benefit from a tax increase, other than to be able to drive on better roads.
Naquin was also not part of the citizens group that led the initiative, but she
says she’s in support of the efforts. “As a consumer, a half-cent for every dollar spent, people can afford that. Compared to the cost of damages to cars. People will not notice at the cash register, but they will notice when they have to get their cars repaired.”
She agrees that “nobody likes taxes, but I think it’s a fair tax,” she said. “I haven’t always agreed with what the city has done, but the bottom line is, there’s no money to fix the roads. It’s only going to get worse and the roads will continue deteriorating. People need to drive around, look at the roads. Pretend you’re new in town, that you’re seeing it for the first time.”
She also thinks it’s about “civic pride,” pointing out that bad roads leave bad “first impressions” to visitors and business executives, who think about quality of life when deciding whether to move their business to a new city.
Better roads would help the city grow and bring in new industry, Naquin added.
Jeffrey Polston, a certified public accountant and treasurer of the political action committee Fix Our Roads, agrees the initiative has everything to do with “civic pride” as well as economic growth.
“We’re trying to bring businesses to Yuma, but they will be discouraged if they see bad roads,” Polston said. “It’s like inviting someone to your house and not having a clean house.”
He became involved with the initiative after the city asked him to sit on an advisory committee tasked with coming up with new revenue. Eventually the group, comprised of people from “all walks of life, business owners, retirees, Republicans, Democrats,” began focusing on the deteriorating condition of city streets. “All we care about is we need to fix our roads in the city. In the next five years they will be so bad we will never be able to recover and fix these roads,” Polston said.
The group realized that if “we are going to fix our roads, we need to control our own destiny,” Polston said, adding that the only way to do so is to raise money internally.
He acknowledged that some people believe they should go to the state and insist it return the Highway Users Revenue Funds, intended to pay for road repairs but which were swept by the state for nearly two decades.
“Feel free to do that. It ain’t going to work,” Polston said, noting that those funds have long been spent.
The group felt that “if we’re going to raise taxes, it has to be a designated fund.” They had to be sure it couldn’t be swept by the state, like HURF funds, or to fund other city needs. “The State of Arizona people, the city cannot sweep it, or else someone will go to jail. There will be audits. It’s a good safety net. It’s not switch and bait,” Polston said.
Prop 411 mandates that its funds cannot be spent on any use other than fixing streets. The city has said it will account for these funds separately and will maintain a separate web page to track funds to ensure transparency, similar to how the city publishes its complete Capital Improvement Program.
Polston has heard some people say “this is a conspiracy by paving contractors so they can get all these jobs. Absolutely not.” Others have suggested the city sell the Pacific Avenue Athletic Complex to raise the money. Polston noted that even if the city sold the PAAC, the money would be part of a different fund and could not legally be used to fix roads.
“There will always be naysayers, but the thing is we all have to pitch in,” he added.
He likes that with a sales tax, the burden wouldn’t just fall on city residents. “Winter visitors, farmers, tourists, we all drive the roads, we all buy supplies. We’ll all pay to the tune of $10 million a year. If we say no (to the tax increase), the city doesn’t have enough money and we’ll continue to have terrible roads. I don’t like taxes either, but we have to do something.”
However, other citizens think there might be alternatives other than raising raises. Howard Blitz, founder and director of The Freedom Library, is concerned that the city has not looked at all the options. “The money might already be there. I’m not a fan of a tax increase,” he said. “The roads need to be fixed and serviced, but my concern is priorities.” He believes the city is doing “different things we shouldn’t be doing.”
Ken Rosevear, retired executive director of the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce and former council candidate, hasn’t made up his mind on whether to support or oppose the tax increase. “I wish they would’ve seen this coming. We’re talking a lot of years this has been happening. It’s nothing new. I wish they would have budgeted money for it. But they didn’t do anything.
“I think the money’s there. We have to hold the administration and council responsible. I wish it wouldn’t have taken a tax increase to do it. They should have done better with money budgeting, but they let it deteriorate for years. They should have planned for it each year and set aside money each year.”
If voters approve the road tax, city officials have said road repairs will start immediately. The city cannot exceed the overall expenditure amount already set in the budget for fiscal year 2018-19. However, the budget has contingency and grant funds that could be reassigned to get some of the work projects started right away. When the new fiscal year comes around on July 1, the city can then include the new revenues in the budget and Capital Improvement Plan.
The city published a preliminary five-year plan in the event Prop 411 passes. If passed, it would legally require funds raised to be dedicated solely to asphalt replacement, patching potholes and roadway maintenance. A map illustrates where the funds would be used. It is published at www.yumaaz.com.
An engineering consultant recently assessed city roads and said that the city needs $13 million a year to properly fix and maintain roads. Officials have repeatedly said that the city does not have enough funding to fix roads. Funds for roads have been steadily decreasing for years. The last time the gas tax was adjusted was 1991. Since then, the cost of roads doubled and gas mileage in vehicles increased by 50 percent, which means less taxes collected at the pump.
Yuma currently collects a retail sales tax of 1.7 percent, which applies to most retail goods, grocery items and food for home consumption, restaurants, bars, transient lodging, residential and commercial rentals or leases, and other categories. The total tax rate for general retail is 8.412 percent when the state, county and city tax rates are combined.
The city has an additional 2 percent “hospitality” tax for transient lodging, bars and restaurants and prepared foods that is collected directly by the city.