Pima County fights state tax burden shift

The Pima County legislative agenda for the next year could easily be called a Hail Mary play.

The county is already suing the state to fight tax changes, and now the Board of Supervisors is asking lawmakers to reverse a policy that shifts the state’s tax burden to the counties.

At the core of the fight are millions of dollars in revenue, which County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry argues has forced the county to keep property rates artificially high.

“We would prefer the easiest and cheapest way to fix the error, which is going back to the Legislature and saying, ‘There is a problem and we need to fix it,’” he said. “Whether it is going to be fixed shortly, or whether or not it has to be fixed by court order, it is going to be fixed.”

In August, the county filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of provisions the state budget passed in March, arguing the Legislature illegally raised state revenue without the required two-thirds majority.

Huckelberry argues that the longer the state waits to address the issue, the chances a judge will ultimately decide only increase.

“As the litigation proceeds, the time for legislative fixes kind of evaporates,” he said.

He believes the merits of the legal challenge are being considered by state lawmakers.

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“Our lobbyist and our filings in court have exposed some fundamental flaws in the legislation, particularly in terms of its constitutionality,” he said.

The county’s 11-point legislative wish list includes having the state rather than the county fully fund mandated programs including, for example, juvenile detention.

Shifting those costs to the counties makes balancing the budget easier and gives state officials the ability to claim there is no state property tax.

“It is an illusion that the state has no property tax,” he said. “We now pay one-third of our primary property tax to the state for state programs.”

The county also wants the state to fully fund new programs, including Gov. Doug Ducey’s proposal for a border-security strike force.

Huckelberry worries the state will again look to the Highway User Revenue Fund to pay for the proposed border security fund, diverting money intended in part to finance local road repairs.

Additionally, the same strike force would also strain the county’s criminal-justice system.

“Those arrested would be housed in a county pretrial detention system, prosecuted by a county attorney, very likely be defended by a county public defender and tried in a county court,” he wrote in a memo to the county Board of Supervisors.