PHOTO: Joint meeting of the Pagosa Town Council and the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, July 2022.
We’ve seen a few extraordinary changes, here in Pagosa Springs, over the past few years.
This coming Friday, Archuleta County Clerk Kristy Archuleta will mail out a letter to “all registered voters” in Archuleta County, titled:
“NOTICE OF ELECTION TO INCREASE TAXES ON A REFERRED MEASURE”
The letter was not written by our County Clerk, however. It was composed by the Board of County Commissioners’ staff.
A fairly well-paid staff, I might add. (But maybe they’d like to be better paid? More about that in a moment.)
The BOCC is required to mail out this notice, because they are seeking a tax increase… and back in 1992, the Colorado voters amended the state constitution in a valiant attempt to slow the growth of government spending. The so-called ‘Taxpayers Bill of Rights’ — also known as the TABOR amendment — attempted to tie the growth of state and local government spending to two factors: inflation and population growth.
Apparently, in 1992, the Colorado voters felt government spending was out of control.
One of the controls put in place by TABOR was a requirement that any tax increase, placed on the ballot, must be accompanied by a non-partisan information sheet, providing the voters with accurate financial information about the pending ballot issue.
The letter that our County Clerk will be sending out gives the ‘Designated Election Official’ as ‘Derek Woodman’ (our County Manager) and his phone number: 970-264-8300.
The letter will also include the “actual historical and current estimated fiscal year spending information” show below… that is, the actual and estimated spending by the Archuleta County government:
2018 (actual) …… $21,006,810
2019 (actual) …… $29,179,380
2020 (actual) …… $33,616,893
2021 (actual) …… $39,994,310
2022 (current year estimate) …… $42,690,028
Extraordinary changes, right?
The thoughtful person reading this list will note that spending by the Archuleta County government has doubled since 2018. More than doubled, in fact. The amount our County government will spend this year is 203% of what the County spent five years ago.
A thoughtful person might conclude that TABOR is not working the way it was supposed to work.
Nevertheless, our County government wants a bigger increase, next year. So they’ve placed a sales tax increase before the voters — a $6.525 million increase in the first year — and so, they need to mail out the informational letter.
Back in June, County Manager Derek Woodman presented the idea of a sales tax increase at a joint Town-County meeting. Here’s what he told the Town Council members:
“We have the possibility, on a one-percent sales tax increase, would generate approximately… uh… a little over $4 million. And then, moving forward with that, both the County and the Town certainly have topics that I think would be — should there be the desire and the wherewithal to move forward on it — the topics would be clearly identified and moved forward.
“You know, one of the topics at the County is, you know, on employee sustainability, and ensuring we have good quality staff, and that they are compensated appropriately.
“But certainly there’s other topics that are — I don’t want to use the word, but — ‘hot’ topics, that are in need, for both of our government entities…”
A month later, the Town and County met again, and somehow the proposed “1%” sales tax increase had grown to a proposed “1.5%” increase. $6.525 million.
We might note here, that Mr. Woodman has good reason to want County employees to be “compensated appropriately.” For one thing, his wife, Tina, is a County employee. In fact, she is the Human Resources Administrator, and has been — since she was hired — rather consistently urging the BOCC to increase salaries and employee benefits.
Here’s another quote from Mr. Woodman at the July 18 joint Town-County meeting, a month later, addressing the question of whether local residents or tourists pay most of the sales tax in Archuleta County.
“There’s also the conversation of what type… or who’s making the payment on the sales tax. The… uh… Tourism Board… or rather, Tourism… uh, Jennie Green… came up with some rough numbers… they are all very rough… but, the businesses… this is on food services… so, restaurants… credit card transactions. Between 60% and 70% are outside the 81147 zip code. So with that conservative estimate, based on fact that most consumers are paying by credit card, we could easily estimate that 50% of food service is from visitors.”
Yes, we could easily estimate that. If we didn’t care that the number were “very rough” and if we didn’t care about accuracy.
Mr. Woodman went on to “estimate” that 30% of retail sales were generated by tourists — based on what?
I reached out to Tourism Director Jennie Green, on September 5, to find out exactly where these “very rough” numbers had come from. I still have not heard back from her.
Another topic discussed at the same July 18 meeting was the idea of hiring of Front-Range consultants Magellan Strategy, to survey likely voters and get a sense of whether a $6.525 million sales tax increase has a chance in hell of passing.
Magellan was subsequently hired to perform the survey, in early August, and they included Jennie Green’s “very rough” estimates as if they were documented, proven facts.
Compared to a property tax, one benefit of a sales tax is that visitors and tourists pay a significant portion of the tax. In fact, restaurants in the county report that 60% to 70% of their credit card receipts are from zip codes outside the county. Furthermore, retail shops say that 30% of their credit card receipts are from outside the county.
A thoughtful person might, therefore, wonder about the Resolution that the Board of County Commissioners will be discussing this afternoon at their regular meeting. The Resolution is intended “to educate and enlighten the citizens of Archuleta County of the need to vote for a 1.5% sales tax increase in the November 8, 2022 election…”
One of the paragraphs reads like this:
“A recent market survey conducted by Magellan Strategies indicated that visitors and tourists would pay a significant portion of this tax. In fact, restaurants in the county reported that 60% to 70% of their credit card receipts are from zip codes outside the county and retail shops reported that 30% of their credit card receipts are from out of the county.”
Somehow, the “very rough” estimates by Tourism Director Jennie Green, had now been confirmed — “In fact” — during a “market survey conducted by Magellan Strategies”… conducted a month after Mr. Woodman presented the estimates.
But let’s get back to that “NOTICE OF ELECTION TO INCREASE TAXES ON A REFERRED MEASURE” letter required by TABOR… because it’s going to be mailed out later this week…
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.