Okay. Part Eleven. Hopefully, we have touched upon almost every important aspect of the proposed $6.5 million sales tax increase placed on the November ballot by our three Archuleta County commissioners, Warren Brown, Ronnie Maez and Alvin Schaaf.
We also briefly discussed the government-funded corporation — the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation — that has offered to spend $10,000 campaigning in favor of the tax increase.
One thing we haven’t yet explored in depth:
What are the alternatives that the Board of County Commissioners didn’t bother to consider, before settling on a perpetual sales tax increase as the best choice?
For one thing, they could have proposed a temporary tax increase. That’s what the Archuleta School District did, when they proposed a seven-year property tax increase to improve school security, provide full-day kindergarten, and boost teacher salaries. Ballot Measure 3A — approved by the community’s voters in November 2018 — created a $1.7 million ‘mill levy override’ that expires in 2025.
The voters might be asked to extend the supplemental mill levy, as the sunset date gets closer. But the School District will need to show us evidence that they did what they promised with the money.
When a tax increase is perpetual, the government never again has to prove itself trustworthy.
According to a recent analysis, about 60% of the properties in Archuleta County are owned by non-residents. These non-residents are paying property taxes, just like the rest of us, to support our schools… including the 3A mill levy override approved in 2018.
But these non-residents contribute relatively little, in terms of sales tax, when compared to full-time households. So we might be tempted to tip our hats to the School District for choosing a property tax increase, instead of a sales tax increase… except that school districts in Colorado cannot legally collect sales taxes. So they didn’t have a choice.
When Magellan Strategies surveyed likely Archuleta County voters on behalf of the BOCC, last month, one of the questions asked was:
“As you may know, Archuleta County and the Town of Pagosa Springs are considering a potential ballot measure this November to provide additional funding for county and town services. Knowing this, would you prefer that the ballot measure be a sales tax increase or a property tax increase?”
Approximately 75% of respondents said they preferred a sales tax increase to a property tax increase.
Our readers may find it interesting to note that Archuleta County voters have not approved a sales tax increase here since 1988. But they have approved several property tax increases during that time, including recent approvals for the Fire District and the School District, and even a property tax increase for the County in 2006.
Possibly, the surveyed voters don’t know what they actually prefer? Or maybe the voters Magellan surveyed don’t represent our community accurately?
If the County and Town have particular projects they would like to start, or complete, and need money to do that, the most sensible way to approach the voters would be to show us the plan, and the estimated cost, and ask for the money they actually need. We taxpayers are pretty sensible, when you ask nicely.
That’s what the School District did in 2018, bless their little hearts.
A less sensible way to ask for increased taxes is to simply pick a number out of the air — like, say, “a 1.5% sales tax increase” — and then, later, make vague promises about how it might be spent, as in the current ballot language:
“…to be used by Archuleta County to improve the safety of roads, bridges and infrastructure in Archuleta County, to construct and maintain needed Archuleta County capital projects and improvements, and to cover the growing costs of providing existing and new services to the citizens of Archuleta County; and to be used by the town of Pagosa Springs to improve the safety of roads, bridges and infrastructure within the Town of Pagosa Springs, to construct and maintain needed Town of Pagosa Springs capital projects and improvements, and to cover the growing costs of providing existing and new services to the citizens of Pagosa Springs…
And then, finally, propose that the tax increase last forever, with no long-term plan.
A rather different approach was taken by the proponents of Ballot Question A this year — a citizen-initiated Town ballot measure, approved by the town voters, to create a $150-per-bedroom-per-month fee for Short-Term Rentals (STRs) within the town limits, and to use the revenues specifically to support workforce housing. This fee was proposed to help address the Colorado “property tax loophole” that benefits the commercial STRs who pay one-quarter the property tax rate of all other commercial properties… and allow those STRs to contribute more fully, and fairly, to our community.
Although the town voters approved this fee, and although a similar fee was recommended by the Town Planning Commission, a group of STR owners have hired a Durango attorney to sue the Town government and challenge the new fee in court.
There were a few things that may have made Ballot Question A especially attractive to the voters. For one, the ballot measure spelled out exactly what the money would be used for. Secondly, the fee would be paid entirely by tourists, not by struggling local families. And then we had the “property tax loophole” that needed filling.
And as icing on the cake, the fee could conceivably discourage future conversions of our limited housing supply into mini-motels, and maybe even convert some STRs into desperately needed long-term rentals.
Instead of proposing a sales tax increase, which unfairly impacts middle- and lower-income families, the BOCC could have proposed a tax similar to the Town’s Ballot Question A. I suspect many county voters would like to see fewer STRs in their neighborhoods.
This tax could have been focused 100% on roads (with an included promise not to backfill the budget) or split 50/50 between roads and housing. We could have been shown a plan and the estimated cost. And the tax could have had a sunset, after a certain number of years.
Unfortunately, the BOCC had no interest in hearing these kinds of ideas from the general public — unlike the two years of study and public meetings conducted by the School District prior to putting their mill levy override proposal in front of the voters.
Unfortunately, the BOCC simply picked a number based on nothing at all, without any kind of plan, and called it a reasonable ballot measure.
Unfortunately, the only group willing to campaign in favor of the sales tax increase — the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation — receives nearly all its annual funding from the County and Town.
Unfortunately…
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.