Thank you for learning why Archuleta County and the Town of Pagosa Springs are considering a ballot measure…
— from the August 2022 ‘Ballot Measure Survey’ conducted by Magellan Strategies.
As we discussed yesterday, the ‘survey’ conducted by Lousiville, Colorado-based Magellan Strategies earlier this month, on behalf of the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) and the Pagosa Springs Town Council, was intended to do two very different jobs.
The main purpose was to identify which arguments — supporting a proposed $6.5 million sales tax increase — might be most successful, in terms of convincing the voters to give more money to a County government they generally distrust… to be split 50/50 with a Town government that the voters apparently trust only slightly more.
Only 35% of survey respondents agreed with the statement, “The Town of Pagosa Springs is fiscally responsible and spends taxpayer money wisely.”
Meanwhile, only 27% of respondents agreed with the statement, “Archuleta County is fiscally responsible and spends taxpayer money wisely.”
Obviously, a serious marketing effort was in order.
Here are the sales tax increase arguments tested by the Magellan survey. Respondents were asked to give their opinion of each argument.
1. 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.
2. If approved, revenue from this ballot measure may address the increase in costs of road maintenance, recreation and trail maintenance, infrastructure, County/Town facilities, and staffing.
3. The primary reason Archuleta County and Pagosa Springs are considering this ballot measure is the fact that the County and Town budgets have been stretched to the limit in providing critical County and Town services. It has been more than 30 years since the County, or the Town has passed a tax increase to fund services. However, the costs of providing services such as road maintenance, police, workforce housing, search and rescue, parks and recreation, utilities, infrastructure, and other services have increased significantly.
4. Archuleta County and Pagosa Springs have the lowest total sales tax rate in southern Colorado at 6.9%. The City of Cortez has a sales tax of 7.3%. Silverton’s sales total tax rate is 10.4%. This ballot measure would increase Archuleta County sales tax to 8.4% putting it right between Cortez and Silverton.
5. As you may know, currently all sales tax revenue within Archuleta County is evenly split between the County and the Town of Pagosa Springs. This is because the Town does not have its own sales tax. Statutorily if a municipality does not have a sales tax in place, the County must evenly split the funds generated with the Town.
According to Magellan consultant Courtney Sievers, the argument that seemed to have the best chance of winning over reluctant voters was Argument 1: telling people that tourists would pay a significant portion of the tax.
Is it possible we don’t really like tourists? Or we think they are freeloaders?
The least effective argument was Number 5: the fact that the County splits its sales tax 50/50 with the Town.
The Five Arguments, taken as a whole barrage, seemed to have an effect on the respondents’ opinions, according to Magellan. At the beginning of the survey, voters were asked whether they supported a $6.5 million sales tax increase, and about 23% said they would definitely vote “Yes” on such a ballot question. About 24% were very sure they would vote “No.”
At the end of the survey, after asking the voters how they felt about the Five Arguments, the exact same question was asked again.
Would you support a $6.5 million tax increase, split between the Town and County, without knowing how it would be spent?
Now, 32% said they would definitely vote “Yes” and 20% said they would definitely vote “No”. A rather significant change of heart, at the end of a five-minute survey/marketing piece.
The biggest change was among younger voters, age 18-44, who had been the least supportive group at the start of the survey. (The most impressionable voters?)
The second key goal of the Magellan survey was to help the Town Council and BOCC decide whether to place this question on the ballot this November, or whether it might be smarter to wait until a future election… the economy has settled down.
I am thinking back to 2011, when the Archuleta School District had plans to build a ‘mega-campus’ west of the high school, and placed a property tax measure on the ballot to fund the project. The School Board at the time was asked if they believed the community would support a maximum $98 million tax increase, and every one of the board members, then, expressed their confidence that they had the community’s support.
This was during a time when the U.S. economy was in turmoil. (As it is currently?)
When the votes were counted, 74% of the community’s taxpayers had voted “No.” That is to say, the proposal was rejected by a 3-to-1 margin.
That’s an interesting percentage, because the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN posted its own little one-question survey on its website, on August 17, the day after Magellan closed the Town/County survey.
As of this past Wednesday, about 81% of the respondents said they would NOT support a 1.5% sales tax.
An optional way to extract additional taxes from the community is to propose the formation of a ‘special taxing district’… such as, for example, a ‘regional recreation district’. Such a district would have its own governing board and its own tax revenue stream. We have a few such districts in Archuleta County. The Pagosa Fire Protection District, for one. The Upper San Juan Library District, for another. The San Juan Water Conservancy District.
Near the end of the joint meeting between the BOCC and the Town Council, on August 16, Town Manager Andrea Phillips posed a question.
“Is there any interest at all, in this group, in creating a Recreation & Parks district? Down the road? Is there any interest in talking about what that would look like?”
Town Council member Jeff Posey responded with an obvious comment. “Looking at the survey results, that sounds like a loser.” The comment elicited laughter from the gathered elected leaders.
“It sure does, doesn’t it,” remarked Commissioner Ronnie Maez. “I was surprised by that.”
Presumably, the survey results to which Council member Posey and Commissioner Maez where referring, were these:
Only 1% of the Magellan survey respondents had selected “Parks & Recreation” as the most important service Archuleta County could provide. Or maybe we could say, a total of 3% — if you also included those favoring “Trails/Open Space”.
In 2022, the key concerns of the people who participated in the Magellan survey seemed to be “Road Maintenance/Repairs” and “Infrastructure”.
I personally found it rather strange, when I visited the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN website yesterday morning, to find another community poll… asking what readers thought a sales tax increase ought to be used for.
Didn’t we just finish telling the SUN we didn’t want a sales tax increase?