EDITORIAL: Extraordinary Changes, Part Ten

Read Part One

We can’t help but notice the extraordinary changes that have taken place in America over the past decade. Housing costs in many communities have increased noticeably since 2012. Millions of workers were laid off during the COVID crisis, left to fend for themselves; many ended up disenchanted with the whole idea of working 9-to-5 jobs, and found ways to live more independently.

As a result, businesses are raising wages and scrambling to find employees. Ditto government agencies.

One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the tendency of governments to want more money.

Here in Archuleta County, we have three ‘fiscally conservative’ Republican commissioners — Ronnie Maez, Warren Brown and Alvin Schaaf — who are opposed to ‘big government’.

That is, unless it’s their own county government. In that case, they simply can’t grow their government budget fast enough.

To that end, they have mailed out what appears to be an illegally composed ‘TABOR’ notice, apparently aimed at encouraging a ‘Yes’ vote on Ballot Issue 1A.

Here’s a list from that TABOR notice that indicated the extraordinary growth of government spending under our current commissioners:

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

Spending by our fiscally conservative Republican commissioners has more than doubled since 2018.

But that’s not enough. They want more money.

For one thing, they went deeply into debt building a huge new jail — after the voters told them not to. Speaking with various deputies, and former deputies, I hear the jail is severely understaffed at times, leaving guards and inmates at risk.

Then they built a new courthouse and a new Sheriff’s office. A new dispatch center. A new DHS building.

A new jail.  A new courthouse.  A new dispatch center.  A new Sheriff’s Office.  A new DHS building.

And, in the works currently… a new bus facility, and a new Administration Building.

I generally try to attend the Board of County Commissioner work sessions, every Tuesday morning, and the regular business meetings every other Tuesday afternoon. Over the past couple of years, I’ve heard numerous, and sometimes lengthy, conversations about capital projects, like the ones mentioned above. I’ve heard discussions about the problems at the landfill, and the new rafting take-out on Trujillo Road, and the new pickleball courts, and the millions of dollars being spent on broadband projects.

I recall the commissioners discussing, at length, the idea of forming their own public health department.

I honestly can’t recall our commissioners discussing a plan — a real plan — for dealing with our roads.

But now they are asking for a huge sales tax increase — an additional 37.5% increase to sales tax revenues that have doubled since 2018.

We have one fairly ordinary problem here in Archuleta County; namely, 320 miles of county roads that our County can’t seem to properly maintain. Without presenting us with any kind of plan, our BOCC tells us that ‘more money will solve the problem.’

We also have an extraordinary problem. A housing crisis unlike any that has hit Pagosa Springs during its 131 year history.

As a result of that housing crisis — and other systemic problems — we have a serious shortage of employees to keep our economy moving.

Making life more expensive for retirees on fixed incomes, and for working families that have seen their rents double since 2015, is an interesting idea.

Doesn’t strike me as a safe road to a diverse, functional community. But maybe our local governments don’t want a diverse, functional community?

But the Pagosa Springs Community Development Corporation seems intent on getting this tax increase passed. As we’ve discussed before, the PSCDC was created by the Town and County governments to support ‘economic development’, and was initially funded almost entirely by the Town and County governments — with the idea that, soon, the organization’s funding would come mainly from the business community.

12 years later, the PSCDC is still funded almost entirely with tax dollars. So when they stepped forward, offering to run the ‘Yes on 1A’ campaign, some of us called ‘foul’. Governments in Colorado are prohibited from spending taxpayer money promoting a tax increase, but apparently the County and Town governments are comfortable with an organization they created and that they largely fund, running a campaign in their favor.

PSCDC announced recently that they would be spending $10,000 promoting ‘Yes on 1A’.

With that in mind, I found it interesting that the Town’s proposed 2023 budget, shared this past Tuesday, shows the amount to be donated to PSCDC has increased rather substantially. Previously, the Town government had been donating about $25,000 annually to PSCDC.

Next year, the funding will total about $83,000.

To wrap up this disturbing series of unfortunate events, I reached out to Tourism Director Jennie Green, who had originally proposed some possible dollar amounts showing how much of the sales tax burden is borne by tourists visiting Pagosa Springs. When I read her report to County Manager Derek Woodman, the numbers didn’t appear to be based on actual data, but more on rough guesses.

When presenting these numbers to the joint Town-County meeting in June, Mr. Woodman had described them as “very rough”. But somehow, they had appeared in the Magellan Strategies survey, in August, as if they were actual, verified numbers.

Reaching out to Ms. Green to get clarification, I was told that she had no comment.

Considering that Archuleta County residents are now paying sales tax on both local and online purchases — while tourists pay sales tax only when buying locally in Pagosa — and considering the massive increase in sales taxes collected by the County since 2018, when local residents first started paying online tax, I would estimate that local residents now carry about 90% of the sales tax burden.

Very rough estimate.

But that’s not what the County government will tell you.