Even inside of the world of municipal budgeting, nature abhors a vacuum.
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry has found six ways to spend part of the $3.9 million created two weeks ago by the Pima County Board of Supervisors when it raised the property tax rate above his recommendations.
Beneficiaries span several supervisors' districts, including $35,000 to keep the Community Performance and Arts Center in Green Valley open, $40,000 to partially open a shotgun trap and skeet facility at the Southeast Shooting Range as well as help the Ajo Chamber of Commerce move into a newer facility.
Other projects include one-time funding to the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation for a suicide prevention program aimed at teens, increasing the annual amount given to sheriff's deputies to cover their uniform allowance by $450 and moving an unused modular structure from the county's sewage treatment facility to the Littletown Food Bank after the food bank's previous trailer was essentially condemned by the county Health Department.
In total, Huckelberry has identified how the board should spend $744,000 of the $3.9 million figure.
In late May, Democrats RamΓ³n Valadez, Richard ElΓas and Sharon Bronson voted for a 7 percent property tax rate increase for next fiscal year, or about $52 for the average single-family-home owner. Their proposal is slightly higher than the 5.5 percent property tax increase Huckelberry had recommended.
The two Republicans on the board, Supervisors Ray Carroll and Ally Miller, voted against the tax-rate increase.
Democrats on the board say the tax increase is needed for projects important to their constituents.
Topping the list will be filling potholes, sealing cracks and otherwise fixing county-maintained roads - 62 percent of which have earned a failing grade.
The board is expected to make a final decision this morning on the tax rate as part of the final adoption of the $1.27 billion budget Huckelberry has proposed.
If you go
β’ What: Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting
β’ Where: 130 W. Congress St., first floor
β’ When: Today, 9 a.m.
Contact reporter Joe Ferguson at jferguson@azstarnet.com or 573-4346.
