[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:06] Good morning. At this time, we're going to call to order the regular meeting of the
[0:10] Paws County Board of Supervisors Monday, August 17th, 2026 at 10.03 a.m.
[0:17] And I invite everybody to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and then remain standing for the invocation,
[0:22] which will be given by Pastor Roger Barnes of Quartzsite Southern Baptist Church.
[0:47] Our Heavenly Father, we just thank you for the beautiful day you've given us in your creation.
[0:51] And thank you for this board here that serves our communities, our towns, our county.
[0:59] We just pray that you give them wisdom and guidance and strength for all the work they
[1:03] do and everyone in our county that serves us.
[1:07] We always pray for truth and kindness and respect among one another where we have
[1:13] difference of opinions sometimes.
[1:16] We pray that we give respect to one another in kindness.
[1:19] And Lord we just thank you once again for the day we pray for Gary and Brennan and the tragic loss of their son.
[1:25] We pray that you bless him and wrap your arms of love around him today.
[1:29] We ask these things and I pray in the name of Jesus.
[1:37] Thank you pastor and if you see him first please pass our condolences on to Gary and his family.
[1:43] Tragic loss.
[1:46] Item number three is called to the public and I have Erica Daniels.
[1:54] Good morning, Erica Dandes of the Parker Regional Chamber of Commerce and Tourism.
[1:59] I just wanted to give you guys a quick update on some of the new and upcoming chamber events and activities.
[2:04] We are currently preparing for our first annual Pumpkin Patch and Harvest Festival,
[2:09] which will be held October 2nd and 3rd at the LaPause County Fairgrounds.
[2:13] We're working on vendors, sponsorship, entertainment, the kids activities, pumpkin patch,
[2:17] and we're going to reintroduce our chili cook-off.
[2:20] We're going to have a pie eating contest and other family activities.
[2:23] we're really excited to bring a new fall event to the community. We're also
[2:27] preparing for our annual Chamber Awards Gala which will take place on Saturday
[2:31] October 17th at Havasu Springs Resorts. Nominations are now open to the
[2:36] community and we will be recognizing outstanding businesses, organizations, and
[2:40] individuals who make a difference in our community. Our Youth Ambassador
[2:44] Chamber Club, aka Yak, is also getting underway for the new school year. We
[2:49] recently presented to the program to students at Parker High School and
[2:53] already have 32 participants interested. We're looking forward to giving our youth
[2:57] more opportunities for leadership, community service, and involvement in local business
[3:01] and civic activities. We continue to focus heavily on membership growth, tourism promotion,
[3:07] and partnerships throughout the community. We appreciate the county and all the local
[3:12] organizations for continuing to work with us. Thank you.
[3:15] Thank you. Next I have, I believe it's Sharmin Johnson. Hopefully I'm saying that
[3:21] correctly.
[3:21] Good
[3:29] morning, Charmin Johnson, I'm the Vice President of the Courtsite Chamber of Commerce.
[3:34] I'm certainly not going to be able to follow her act since this is my first time speaking
[3:41] to you all.
[3:42] What I wanted to do is I wanted to thank you for the funds from last year that supported
[3:49] the Main Street revitalization.
[3:51] we were able to support the improvement of seven different businesses and with
[3:59] that, whether it was the repaving, signage, that type of thing, it's been a
[4:04] considerable improvement and we look forward to any additional funding this
[4:09] year that will be round two for that. I would say that due to the success from
[4:17] last year, as well as the fact that there has been definite damage in court
[4:24] site due to the flooding, that there's going to be additional interest in that.
[4:29] From a court site chamber of commerce activities perspective, I dropped off
[4:36] during the last meeting a save the date, which I'm hoping that you were able to
[4:43] see but November 16th of we're going to have a chill in with the locals business
[4:54] showcase at the QIA from four to seven and the idea is to basically bring in all
[5:01] of the different businesses within court site as well as any from Parker
[5:07] have assumed life that support court site we also would like there to be any of
[5:15] the government and civic leaders so that we can do a meet and mingle it is a
[5:22] social there will be food and alcohol available for any of that so that's all
[5:30] I have today. Any questions? Oh, you can. Have a lovely day.
[5:39] Okay. That's going to bring
[5:41] us to item number four, County Administrator and or County Supervisors current event summary
[5:49] is McDowell. Morning, Mr. Chairman. I don't have any updates at this time. Thank you.
[5:56] Supervisor Irwin, who by the way, it's on the scene or up there yet. Yeah, I do
[6:02] have two. One, I wanted to give an update on the Heartmine Bridge slash
[6:07] Sabola Bridge that went down in the river about two weeks ago. Just one, myself,
[6:14] Jason and Shelley Baker attended a Zoom meeting with the Bureau of Reclamation
[6:18] last week with other agencies and they informed us that their engineers had
[6:25] been out, inspected the bridge other than the portion that is still
[6:29] currently in the river, the rest of the bridge structure is is okay. There's there's no compromise
[6:37] as far as they could tell. They're putting navigation lights on both sides of the bridge
[6:42] should have been completed by last week and they have applied for
[6:47] or plan on applying for federal emergency funding so they can help get that part of the bridge
[6:54] removed from the river kind of similar to what we went through and they will provide
[7:00] updates once they come along and of course funding is going to you know be the key factor
[7:05] into replacing the bridge which they do plan on replacing that section so I wanted to
[7:11] give a quick update on that and I don't know if Jason or Shelly's there if they
[7:16] want to add anything to that or if I got it covered. And also this August 22nd, the Attorney
[7:25] General will be visiting La Paz County, both in Parker and Courtsite at the Arizona Western
[7:32] College campuses. I believe Parker's from 10 to 12, and then Courtsite's from 1230 to 2. So
[7:40] anybody that wants to come get some updates on what she's done in La Paz County and
[7:45] voice their concerns on anything, they're welcome to do so. And that's all I got.
[7:51] All right, Jason is here. Did you have anything to add, Jason? Okay, Jason said
[7:55] you did an excellent job. You cannot add a thing to it. I noticed the AG only gave
[8:00] herself a half hour to get from Count Parker to court site. So tell her don't
[8:04] get stopped speeding because I write our county attorney doesn't make it
[8:08] It doesn't matter who you are, you're going to be in trouble.
[8:13] All right, anything?
[8:16] Nope, I don't have anything this morning.
[8:19] So that will move us to our consent agenda, which
[8:24] is items 5A through M. Are there any consent agenda items
[8:31] that somebody would like to have pulled
[8:33] for additional discussion?
[8:36] Not for me.
[8:36] any. Apparently we're good there in that case I would entertain a motion on consent agenda
[8:42] items five a through M. Move to approve is presented. No second. We have a motion and
[8:49] a second to approve consent agenda items five a through M as presented any discussion
[8:55] on the motion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye aye aye any opposed
[9:03] motion carries and this will bring us to well we get skip item six and hold it to
[9:09] the end right because nobody here is interested in that it's gonna bring us
[9:17] to our regular agenda item number six discussion impossible action to approve
[9:21] acceptance of the animal relief fund ARF proposal to assume shelter services
[9:26] and authorized staff to begin working on a professional services contract to
[9:31] finalize the partnership contingent upon ARF meeting all county requirements.
[9:38] Ms. McDowell. Good morning Mr. Chairman, members of the board. We're actually
[9:43] excited to be presenting this to you today. We've been working on it for
[9:46] some time. Administration is recommending moving forward with the
[9:50] Animal Relief Fund proposal as a new direction for providing animal shelter
[9:55] services to the county. We believe partnering with ARF will allow the
[10:00] county to provide better and more focused shelter services while allowing the county
[10:05] to continue concentrating on animal control responsibilities. This action does not approve
[10:11] a final contract. The approval will allow us to begin working with ARF to clearly define
[10:18] responsibilities, costs, performance expectations and accountability measures. Any partnership
[10:24] will be contingent upon ARF meeting all county requirements with the final agreement
[10:29] coming back to the board for approval.
[10:34] Any questions to the vice-president Erwin?
[10:38] I'm just going to say some stuff here.
[10:40] I want to tell you that I couldn't be happier
[10:43] that we are finally at this spot.
[10:46] This has been something I've been interested in
[10:48] since 2017 when I took office.
[10:51] I wasn't originally the person working on this.
[10:54] I've had that opportunity now.
[10:56] But it has been a struggle.
[10:58] It has been, there's been a lot of hurdles.
[10:59] It's taken us probably a year and a half of solid work to get to today.
[11:05] But as somebody who comes from the non-profit world and worked in a public-private partnership
[11:11] for 22 years, I think it was, this is something I've always advocated for.
[11:16] You know, government, I hope we're good at some things, but I'm not sure how many,
[11:21] but there's a lot of things we're not good at and that we have people who can do a
[11:24] much better job, in my opinion.
[11:26] So I think moving in this direction is going to be beneficial to the county and the community
[11:32] and probably most importantly the animals that are being taken care of over there.
[11:38] And I know we're not there, we're not done yet, we still have to work through the final
[11:42] parts of this process but today is a big deal in accepting this application,
[11:55] this
[11:55] building that is a separate process from this that is in the process of the RFP
[12:02] right now so we're taking in looking for bids to come in on that and hopefully
[12:06] we'll make progress and this all comes together in a nice tidy little gift box
[12:12] and we can put a bow on it and move forward so again I've gone through the
[12:19] application I think it looks good I know Ms. McDowell has worked tirelessly
[12:23] on this as well as our legal counsel over there and they're the ones you got to watch
[12:26] for.
[12:27] Man, they're tough.
[12:31] But if nothing else, I will make a motion that we approve acceptance of the Animal Relief
[12:38] Fund ARF proposal to assume shelter services and authorized staff to begin working on
[12:44] a professional services contract to finalize the partnership contingent upon ARF meeting
[12:49] all county requirements.
[12:53] second we have a motion and a second any discussion on the motion if not all
[13:00] those in favor please say aye aye I wait
[13:10] a minute now since you guys did that I
[13:11] have to give them the chance any opposed I dare you go ahead I dare you
[13:16] sheriff oh I couldn't see him in the with the light behind him so I wanted
[13:23] to make sure. All right. All those in favor please say aye. We did that right. So it's
[13:29] like a thousand ayes. All right. So that motion carries. Congratulations and we look forward
[13:37] to it.
[13:42] Margaret did you ever think we'd be here?
[13:52] Okay. Item number seven discussion
[13:54] and possible action to disperse fiscal year twenty six twenty seven funding to organizations
[13:59] applications applying for the La Paz County Community Partners Funding Program. It is a
[14:04] budgeted item and I'm going to ask Ms. McDowell, our County Administrator, to go over the recommendations.
[14:11] But before she does, I just want to share with folks this is this is something that
[14:15] I feel like we get to do. It's an opportunity for us to put some money back out into
[14:19] the communities. And then it becomes not much fun sometimes because we had out of
[14:26] app we had eighty six over eighty six thousand dollars requested over the
[14:32] amount we have available because we have a budgeted amount available for
[14:36] community partner programs so the hardest part is they're all great
[14:40] programs everything's worthy and we want to they're all doing good work but we
[14:44] have a limited amount of money that we can spread around so I'm gonna let
[14:49] miss McDowell take it from there. Good morning Mr. Chair, members of the
[14:54] board. Each year the county budgets funding to support local organizations that
[15:00] Provide services and programs that benefit our communities and our residents.
[15:06] Organizations were given the opportunity to apply, and those requests were reviewed by
[15:10] a committee and administration. The recommendations before the Board are based on the services
[15:15] provided, community benefit, available funding, and the information submitted by each organization.
[15:23] The Board has the final authority to approve the funding amounts and can make any changes
[15:27] to the recommendations as needed before final approval.
[15:31] The recommendations are as follows.
[15:36] Bouse Chamber, 12,500.
[15:39] Bouse Elementary, Will Fund, zero.
[15:44] Crisis Shelter Services, 5,000.
[15:48] La Paz County Fair, 9,000.
[15:51] La Paz Economic Development, 20,000.
[15:54] LaPause Regional Tourism, 6,600, McMullen Valley Chamber, 12,500, Parker Area Chamber,
[16:05] 12,500, Parker Library Friends, 2,500, Parker Senior Center, zero, the county is already
[16:15] contributing 100,000 for the Mills on Wheels program, Hort Sight Chamber is 12,500, Hort
[16:23] Courtsite Food Bank 5000,
[16:26] Courtsite Improvement Association 6,900.
[16:30] And those are the recommendations
[16:32] for the community partner funding.
[16:36] Okay, any questions from board members,
[16:40] comments, concerns?
[16:43] If not, I would entertain a motion
[16:45] to approve the disperse the funding
[16:50] as described by our county administrator.
[16:55] Is there a motion?
[16:56] I'll move to approve this presented.
[16:58] Second.
[16:59] We have a motion to second to approve
[17:01] the funding disbursements as presented.
[17:04] Any discussion on the motion?
[17:06] Hearing none.
[17:07] All those in favor, please say aye.
[17:10] Aye.
[17:10] Aye.
[17:11] Any opposed?
[17:13] Motion carries.
[17:15] Okay, item number eight.
[17:17] It's a public hearing regarding fiscal year 2026, 2027
[17:21] proposed tax levies.
[17:24] And I don't know if that's gonna be Stephanie
[17:25] or Karen or who gets to take us down this road. Mr. Chairman I'll be having Karen
[17:31] Ziegler our consultant she'll be presenting the tax levy presentation today.
[17:38] Good morning Mr. Chairman I am gonna share my screen can you all see the
[17:44] cover sheet for the tax levy presentation? Yes ma'am. Perfect and you can hear me
[17:50] okay? Yes I'm afraid we can. You'll get used to me.
[18:00] So I'm happy today to go over
[18:03] the tax year 26 levy presentation. The process is by statute that the board
[18:12] has to approve a tax levy by August 17th or the 3rd Monday I believe in August
[18:19] And so we've had collected the budget and required documentations from all the special districts and put together this tax levy presentation for your review and approval.
[18:30] And so what I'm going to do is start at the special districts and I'll move backwards and we'll open it up to for discussion.
[18:39] If you have any items you would like to discuss further.
[18:44] So this here is the special districts.
[18:48] This on this side is the fiscal year or tax year 2025.
[18:54] And then this side here is the tax year 2026.
[18:58] On top is the domestic water improvement districts,
[19:02] the DWIDs.
[19:03] We only have one DWID and that is Wendon
[19:06] that is actually imposing a tax levy this year.
[19:11] As we know last week,
[19:12] we had the meeting on the desert sky DWID
[19:15] And they didn't meet certain requirements to actually impose a levy for 2026, so that is 0 for 2026.
[19:26] The budget for the Wendend Wid is $19,998 based on a net assess value of $1,268,532, which creates a tax levy of 1.5765.
[19:43] five. That is an increase over last year based on their budget.
[19:51] The next, before I move on
[19:53] to the other districts, does anybody have any questions about the DWIDs?
[19:58] I don't believe so. Okay. The irrigation districts, we have three and this was the
[20:07] budgets that were submitted and the net assess value, which calculates the rate.
[20:15] The first two, there was no increase in the rate.
[20:19] The McMullen Valley was actually a slight decrease in the rate for 26.
[20:26] Then we have the sanitary district, which is Buckskin.
[20:29] their rate stayed the same at 1.1883 and then we have the sleds or the street
[20:40] lighting improvement districts. Those rates are based on the amount that we pay
[20:47] for those utility bills, electric bills for those particular lighting
[20:51] districts. That comes from the county budget like I said what we're paying
[20:57] out for electricity. And there's some slight changes in the rates from last year to FY 20 or the
[21:06] texture 26 rates.
[21:10] And if there's any questions, I'm happy to entertain those. Otherwise, I'll move to
[21:15] the next group of tax levies. I think we can move forward. Thank you. So the next group is the
[21:23] cities, schools and fire districts and I'm going to start at the bottom and move
[21:27] up and so we're going to start with the fire districts we have several fire
[21:33] districts there's a maximum tax levy of 3.75 so if you look at you know the
[21:40] Parker fire district their tax levy is 3.3 2 9 9 last year was 3 1 5 2 3 which
[21:49] which is a slight increase of their tax levy.
[21:53] McMillan Valley was 3.7121, just minimal increase
[22:00] or decrease, excuse me, of over last year.
[22:03] We have Buckskin Fire, which is at the maximum right now
[22:07] and was as well last year.
[22:09] Portsite at 3.7063, which is a slight decrease
[22:15] from last year.
[22:15] the Ehrenberg fire district 2.6875. They were actually at the max last year and
[22:25] then the Bowles fire district of 3.3299, which is a slight increase over the rate
[22:31] from last year. There was the two fire districts, I believe it's Parker and
[22:40] McVillain Valley, Stephanie correct me if I'm wrong.
[22:43] Worksite and McVillain Valley.
[22:45] Yeah, they're now appos United or I believe.
[22:49] That consolidation didn't occur before Department of Revenue did what their requirements were.
[22:57] So for the purposes of the tax levy, there will be two separate levies,
[23:01] but then next year those will be combined into one unified district for the 2028
[23:10] budget.
[23:13] Does anybody have any questions on the fire districts?
[23:18] No, but thank you for clearing that up. I was going to hit that one, but yeah, just so people know
[23:21] what's going on there. Then we have the joint
[23:26] technology education district. There's a
[23:29] 0.05 levy there. And then we have the
[23:33] school districts. There's only one school district
[23:37] that has a levy, which is Parker, and it's 1.18
[23:42] which is just slightly lower than what the rate was last year.
[23:49] Then, oh, excuse me, we do have
[23:52] a bunch of them. Yeah.
[23:59] So, yes, I'm sorry, I was, there's a primary rate and a secondary rate. That's,
[24:05] they have the primary rates and then I think Parker is.
[24:11] And that's because, just so you know,
[24:13] that is because that's an override that is voter approved if it was just their
[24:17] regular budget it would be on the primary but it's their override but it's
[24:23] interesting because that years ago I don't know how many five six seven years ago
[24:26] we secondary and primary are taxed the same now it used to be a difference so
[24:34] but that's why they're that's why they fall into the secondary. Thank you
[24:38] that clarification.
[24:42] Okay, then we have the cities and towns. There is no levy for Parker and
[24:49] Cork site and then Arizona Western College. We have a rate of 1.9509. Last year was 1.9894,
[25:00] so slight decrease there. And then we come to the county. And this is where the board is going
[25:09] to have the opportunity to have the discussion and then to set the tax levy for this upcoming
[25:17] tax year. So this number here, 9167187 is based on the estimate that we put in the FY 27 budget
[25:28] when we passed the budget back in June. At that time we didn't have the final figures
[25:34] for the net assessed values and all of that. So it was clearly an estimate. That estimate was
[25:40] based off of some information from the assessor's office on what we felt the tax, the estimated tax
[25:51] coming in would be. So this here is the five-year plan that we review during our budget process.
[25:58] FY27 is the year that we're talking about. We estimated just a slight growth over the
[26:07] FY26 tax rate, and then we also had the personal property tax portion of the solar that we
[26:17] anticipated getting for the first time in FY27. So like I said, these were estimates,
[26:23] those two together total the nine million one six seven one eight seven. So that's a number we move
[26:28] forward in the budget. However, that number is is up for discussion and approval by the board.
[26:37] So there is a calculation worksheet that we use to determine what that tax rate is going to be
[26:45] and whether the county is required to have a truth in taxation what we call TNT hearing.
[26:51] It's based on what the current property tax levy rate is, the net assess value,
[26:59] minus construction, and then some calculations to get down to what we're
[27:06] allowed to go up to without the TNT here. So I'm going to get down here. The
[27:15] maximum amount that the county can tax without a truth in taxation hearing is
[27:22] 9,465. As I mentioned we budgeted 9,167 and that would not trigger a TNT
[27:33] because we would be below the percentage rate. For FY26 we were at 2.5157. So now
[27:43] Now the discussion is what does the Board want to levy for the 26th tax year, 27th budget?
[27:53] So based on this number here, the proposed primary tax rate would be 2.5540, which is
[28:02] a slight increase over the 26th rate.
[28:06] Again, we don't have a TNT or a requirement for a TNT, but down here tells you what
[28:12] the the primary tax would be based on a per 100,000 and I did a calculation here
[28:22] of a million dollar property I certainly can do a hundred that here let me do this
[28:27] one this one I think I did it on a five hundred thousand property so you can
[28:33] see per 100,000 the property tax would be $1,277 on the $500,000 property if we
[28:44] went up to the full amount that would be allowed without the truth and taxation
[28:50] hearing it would be 25791 which would be 1,289. It would still be a slight
[29:00] decrease over what would I guess what the rate would be last year but again this
[29:09] is what the private property tax per 100,000 based on this 2.55 rate hopefully
[29:18] I explain that I'm sorry but this is kind of a complicated formula to to
[29:27] explain. So what I wanted to share here is this was the budgeted amount and this
[29:35] amount can be adjusted. We've had some discussions about keeping this property
[29:42] tax rate the same as last year and to do that this number would have to be
[29:48] decreased. So I plugged in this number here 9,000,025 which is 142,187
[29:57] less than what we estimate
[30:01] That actually brings the property tax rate down to 2.5144, which is just under what we had
[30:13] for the FY26 tax rate.
[30:18] 142,000 in the overall budget is not that difficult to absorb. And
[30:27] it seems like that was the will that we keep the property tax rate the same as last year.
[30:35] So when we come back to this form here, which is what the board is going to approve,
[30:44] you can see if we use the 9 million 167, the rate is 2.5540, but if we plug in the 9025
[30:53] here that drops that rate down to 2.5144. Again last year was 2.5157 which is a slight decrease
[31:05] in the property tax rate. So with that I think I'm going to stop and then I'm going to turn it
[31:11] over to Deuce and let him kind of explain what his thoughts are you know on this tax rate and
[31:17] and probably could do a better job
[31:18] with the history of this than I can.
[31:23] Well, thank you.
[31:25] And yeah, so we always share this,
[31:27] a lot of meetings we share this,
[31:29] that the three board members,
[31:30] we don't get to talk to one another between meetings
[31:33] because we're only a three-member board.
[31:35] So we have to wait and have our discussions here,
[31:37] which is fine.
[31:38] You're welcome to be bored by them.
[31:40] But I understand that all three of us
[31:44] have had the opportunity to go over this with staff and when I had that opportunity I burned
[31:52] a lot of Karen's time and a lot of Stephanie's time but I have been on a, I don't know if
[31:59] I called a mission but I just have a very strong feeling about how we tax folks and
[32:06] Karen did a good job I think of explaining it. The one thing that's left out of this
[32:12] presentation that I think is important for everybody to understand is unless and
[32:18] when you look at your property tax if you look at yourself up online your
[32:21] property value you have a full cash value and you have a limited property value
[32:27] your taxed on your limited property value amount it's in most cases I would
[32:33] say most cases it's substantially below the full cash value that's a good thing
[32:37] because you don't want you want to be taxed on the lower amount but the
[32:41] key to this whole system is by law your limited property value goes up 5% every year until
[32:49] you reach your full cash value. Now I don't know if anybody, if any of us will live to
[32:55] see that because full cash value is what is adjusted when the assessors canvass and
[32:59] do their assessments and do their thing. So the likelihood is the limited cash value
[33:06] is going to go up 5% a year. So even if we keep the tax rate the same, we're going to
[33:15] be receiving 5% more from property owners than we did last year. So that is why when
[33:24] I met with staff, I was advocating strongly that we maintain the current tax rate and
[33:33] it'll be a little actually fraction, small fraction less.
[33:38] But I don't do that haphazardly
[33:40] when I have that conversation.
[33:42] And if anybody's been paying attention
[33:44] for the last seven or eight years,
[33:46] La Paz County has come a very long way
[33:48] in our financial portfolio in the way we look.
[33:51] We're not, in 2017, we were looking to borrow money
[33:55] from anybody that would give it to us
[33:56] just to pay the bills.
[33:58] You know, we're in a much better place now.
[34:00] We have a reserve in this year's budget
[34:03] budget and I've applauded staff every step of the way on this, but on this year's budget
[34:08] we have money budgeted to continue paying down the pension debt, which is critical.
[34:15] And then we also this year budgeted a contingency and as well as adding money to our reserve,
[34:23] which I think are all things, those are things I support, I think they're all important
[34:26] and I think it's good financial stewardship.
[34:30] That said, as opposed to taking more from the taxpayers,
[34:36] and when I look at a contingency of 1.2 million,
[34:39] I feel like we can easily afford
[34:41] to go to that lower number, Karen quoted,
[34:44] which was the 9,000,025 and whatever change
[34:48] to bring us back to last year.
[34:50] And I would be, I will feel good
[34:54] if we can do that this year.
[34:55] I my goal that I've shared with staff repeatedly is I would like to see us drive the tax rate
[35:02] down much more substantially in future years and I say that because we're we're receiving
[35:09] new monies through our solar program what we lease the land which is a great thing and
[35:15] everybody on this board has supported that for a long time and we're starting now finally
[35:20] to reap those rewards we're seeing the revenues come in.
[35:23] And I know we have a lot of needs in our county and we're addressing a lot of that in this
[35:28] year's budget, but I also want to see the taxpayer benefit directly from that if possible.
[35:34] That is my goal.
[35:36] And I don't know, this may be a complete coincidence, so I'm going to say something
[35:40] I shouldn't, but when I was going over all the tax rates for this year, many of them,
[35:47] the districts you saw, are reducing their tax rate.
[35:52] I'm looking at Bicentennial by almost $0.39, Salome by $0.65,
[35:58] Winden School District is lowering their tax rate by $2.94.
[36:03] I think that's probably in response,
[36:06] and Carrie Ann can tell me if I'm wrong or Rex,
[36:08] but I'm pretty sure that is in direct response
[36:11] to the new business personal property tax being collected
[36:15] from the solar project.
[36:16] Because we receive the rents, but we also get property tax
[36:20] from those investments that are being made out there.
[36:23] So the districts benefit, I would say,
[36:26] much more and quicker than the county at large,
[36:29] because the county obviously is spread out
[36:31] over the 4,500 square miles where those districts,
[36:35] if the district happens to have a solar project in it,
[36:38] you see a $2.94 reduction in their tax rate.
[36:42] So I would like to see the county moving in,
[36:45] I would say, a similar direction.
[36:47] We're not going to be able to drop it like that.
[36:48] obviously we're not like I said they're a much more direct impact but I feel like
[36:54] we're doing we've done a very good job of straightening out our finances and I
[36:57] think we're in a very good place and I just want to see the taxpayers like I
[37:02] said benefit from that I was told this may not be the right year to do
[37:07] something more substantial hopefully next year after we have a year under our
[37:11] belts because the money is budgeted from the solar but we're scheduled to
[37:15] receive it in December. I do agree strongly that we shouldn't, we don't want to spend
[37:20] it until we receive it. It's budgeted and it's out. It's owed to us, but we want to make
[37:24] sure there's no hiccups before we spend it. But again, for $140,000 or whatever it was,
[37:31] I feel comfortable that we could at least do a good showing to our taxpayers by maintaining
[37:36] our tax rate. That's my pitch and I will open the floor to the other supervisors
[37:42] to agree or disagree or
[37:48] that's you Holly oh no you did a great job I'm
[37:54] explaining that and I went over all of this previously with Karen and Stephanie
[37:59] and I couldn't agree more you know I think that the 142 it will be easy to
[38:06] absorb especially with the extra revenues that we see coming into the
[38:10] county and the taxpayers to you know deserve for us to keep it at the same
[38:16] rate in my opinion and I do not disagree with leaving things the same if if you
[38:23] look at that solar projected the five-year plan it shows maybe four million
[38:28] next year instead of two million this year I still think we really have to
[38:34] concentrate on getting rid of any debt and that whether you call it pension
[38:39] plans the state gave us a giant number that we owe and they get to charge us
[38:46] seven and a half percent interest on that every single year. You inherit a debt
[38:52] and have to pay interest on that debt. The side is just paying it off so yes I
[38:58] think that as a county as a whole to get financially sound you know giving
[39:02] back some is great but let's allocate most of that money towards getting
[39:08] getting rid of the debt, it will jump down every year, then you give people back, lower
[39:15] their tax rate, a little bit of time, but we need to really concentrate future years towards
[39:23] debt reduction in my opinion.
[39:25] And I, again, I think you and I have always seen eye-to-eye on debt reduction, I strongly
[39:31] agree and that this, if we do what we're talking about, it's not going to change
[39:35] what we budgeted in that regard.
[39:37] It would be the contingency line that would be affected.
[39:40] But again, I do think it's our, as stewards of the taxpayers' money, I want to pay down
[39:46] that debt for sure.
[39:48] But again, I want to see the taxpayers receive some of that benefit.
[39:53] And again, the underlying thing that just eats me alive is even if we leave it the
[39:57] same, the tax bill is going up 5%.
[40:02] So they're going to pay more if we leave it the same.
[40:04] And I want to be conscious of that.
[40:09] The percentages are easier to get lost when you talk about dollars.
[40:13] Right, right. And it's not, on most homes, it's not a monumental amount.
[40:18] But the other thing that we have going for us as a side note as being supervisors is when you get your tax bill,
[40:25] maybe you can spread this around, no offense to our districts that are in the audience.
[40:29] But when you get your tax bill, you have to look at each line, right?
[40:33] because people call when they get their tax bills and they're upset at the amount of taxes
[40:38] they're paying and I have to show them which I always keep a tax bill in my little calendar
[40:44] so I can show somebody the different lines and the county is we're affecting one line
[40:51] on that tax bill.
[40:52] The rest of those lines that add up to what you pay are all the districts.
[40:56] So you have to talk to the districts individually if you think that they need to be revisiting
[41:01] anything.
[41:02] But yeah, we're responsible for that one line on your tax bill.
[41:25] Right, well that's what we're talking about, yeah.
[41:33] Well I've heard Holly kind of say that and I've heard you say that.
[41:36] So I guess I would ask if there are any other questions before we have the public hearing about it.
[41:42] Oh, I went way too far on this because we did all the present.
[41:45] We shouldn't even be talking yet.
[41:46] Everything we said has to be said over again.
[41:48] No, I just got sideways, because I've been on this for so long.
[41:54] Okay, thank you for pointing that out, that this is a public hearing.
[41:59] So we did want to hear the presentation, but this is your opportunity, if you have any
[42:03] comments that you would like to make, this is your opportunity to do so.
[42:08] If anyone wishes to comment, now is the time to approach.
[42:15] Okay, seeing nobody approach, we're going to go ahead and close the public hearing,
[42:20] world's longest public hearing and we're going to move on to item number nine discussion of
[42:25] possible action to adopt fiscal year 2026 2027 tax levies we'll make this one the shortest
[42:34] move to approve oh second wait okay well time out because we have to see the tax rate yeah
[42:41] yeah we have to we have to determine what we're doing we're gonna instructing staff so Karen
[42:45] What is the can you tell us the full number? It's nine. It's nine million twenty five thousand
[42:52] That is correct. Mr. Chairman nine million oh two five. Oh, even okay. Yeah, it is okay, so
[42:57] So the motion would be to I guess we would adopt the levy, but we would is though that is the levy amount
[43:04] So that's what we have to adopt so we would adopt the levy at nine million
[43:09] 25,000
[43:11] Which would equate to a two point five one four four rate, right?
[43:16] I move to approve the nine million twenty-five thousand at two point five one four four
[43:22] I'll second and all the other levies right of course and all the other
[43:26] All right, so that we have a motion and a second
[43:31] To a take action to adopt the fiscal year
[43:35] 2627 tax levies
[43:37] Instructing staff that the county levy for La Paz County will be at the amount of nine million twenty-five thousand
[43:44] in equating to a tax rate of 2.5144.
[43:49] Any discussion on the motion?
[43:52] We just have to figure out where to absorb it
[43:54] in the budget just to give that.
[43:56] Yeah, and I think, well, we were pointing at contingency,
[43:59] but yeah, but that would be like staff can work on that.
[44:02] So, all right.
[44:04] There's no other discussion.
[44:05] All those in favor, please say aye.
[44:08] Aye. Aye. Aye.
[44:10] Any opposed?
[44:12] Motion carries.
[44:13] with that. Thank you to all of our our friends and everybody else who's here today and with that we're adjourned.
[44:20] Thank you.