Concerns voiced over property tax plan in Wellton
Wellton residents came away from Tuesday’s public meeting about the town’s upcoming property tax election with different takes on the tenor of the meeting and the sentiments of the crowd, but all agree there will be another meeting May 9.
The special election on the measure, known as Proposition 410, is being held May 16, and early voting is underway.
The Wellton Town Council is seeking approval for a levy of up to $400,000, with an estimated $2.6385 property tax rate, to close a historic deficit of about $300,000 and pay for the town’s future needs. A primary property tax is used to pay for core administration and public safety costs, along with sales tax and other revenues going into the city’s general fund.
The town’s economy has yet to recover from the Great Recession, when many agricultural and retail employers closed up shop in the area. An infusion of $800,000 in past-due sales tax at the beginning of 2014 ended up making things worse, as much of it was spent quickly and the town took on more debt.
Luis Luna, an outspoken critic of the tax plan who takes credit for suggesting the second meeting, said the majority of the roughly 150 people in attendance appeared to share his position.
“I believe it will not pass, and god willingly it will not pass, because it’s injustice,” he said, because two large contingents within the town cannot vote: winter visitors not registered locally, and Hispanic farmworkers, both those in the country legally and those who are undocumented.
Luna said the town should instead cut back spending on unnecessary equipment and excessive salaries.
“You don’t want to be an overpaid person,” he said. “This town of Wellton is poor. That’s why no local business has ever been successful here, if so it’s because it’s been rooted here from 20, 25 years ago-plus. But we will survive. We will survive.”
He’s also worried about taxes increasing year after year, once they get established. “Yeah so what do they want? Do they want $400,000 this year, $500,000 next year, then the following year $600,000, $700,000? That’s ridiculous, totally ridiculous,” he said.
Under Arizona law, a county or municipality cannot raise its primary property tax levy more than 2 percent each year without voter approval.
Luna said he had to leave the meeting early, “so my last question was, could it be possible to have a next meeting, and he said yes, in two weeks. The people who were around me heard that and liked it.”
Town Manager Larry Killman said Luna did help inspire the scheduling of the second meeting, which will be 6 p.m. May 9 at the First Southern Baptist Church, 11711 William St., Wellton. This is also where the voting center will be located on Election Day.
There will be information on unrelated town topics at the meeting, he said, but property tax is expected to be the main one again. “We haven’t touched a lot of people, and they think they know already. As the discussion goes around and the questions come up, I think they start to look at the issues and information, and maybe decide they need a little more information,” he said.
He said his takeaway about the tax measure’s chances on the ballot was pretty negative just after the meeting, but improved quickly after that.
“The first impression is that people are against it, but as the information gets disseminated people are rolling over. Another gentleman caught me in my garage over lunch and said ‘show me some information, I’m on the fence and you convinced my son last night. I believe in the town but I have concerns about the history’ and how we got here.’ There’s a lot of people who want assurances those things won’t happen again,” he said.
Killman said the town has taken some steps to ensure spending is easily tracked and isn’t needlessly overspent, including making sure the time-card system correctly attributes hours worked for each department.
Wellton contractor and hardware store owner Ralph Davidson, a Proposition 410 supporter, left the town meeting with a better outlook than Killman did. “I’m going to tell you I had doubts this measure would pass, but I think we have a pretty good chance of getting it passed,”
He said he’d spoken to several residents who had changed their positions on it, including one couple who had been dead-set against it, but ended up early-voting for it.
The husband had called the county assessor’s office and gotten an estimate of how much the tax on his house would cost. “It was around $200 for the year. So he said, well, $200 a year versus raising the sales tax, that was definitely doable. He said that makes sense,” Davidson said.
Killman said he understands the tax could be difficult for some residents and businesses to pay, but sees either going with a property tax or without one as something of a gamble.
As one restaurant owner shared her concerns with him this week, he said, “I’m sitting in her restaurant looking across the street at four that are closed. I’m going to get money from those people, and vacant lots in Coyote Wash and every piece of property is going to be taxed. So I will have an assured revenue.
“It may cost me a business, that’s possible. But I think a sales tax would also cost me businesses. Any increase anywhere is going to have some negative effects, so you have to just hope the positives will outweigh the negatives. But if we don’t set a floor, I don’t know how far we might drop.”