The Pima County Board of Supervisors approved a $1.24 billion tentative budget that includes a 10-cent primary property tax reduction Tuesday.
The reduction was based in part on County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry’s opinion that it was unlikely the state would appeal a recent Maricopa County Superior Court judge’s decision that eliminated a roughly $16 million state cost shift to the county.
The budget was approved with a 4-1 vote, with District 4 Supervisor Ray Carroll casting the lone nay vote. The board previously failed to approve a tentative budget at its May 24, splitting 2-2 with Supervisor Ramón Valadez absent.
A draft budget presented in April proposed a 10-cent hike to cover a portion of the $16 million bill the county was expecting, much of it due to the Tucson Unified School District, but that recommendation was nixed in the wake of the late May court decision.
Tentative budgets set ceilings for tax rates and budgets that final budgets can come in under. The maximum primary rate approved by the board Tuesday was just under $4.29 for every $100 of assessed value. The current rate is roughly $4.39, and the rate proposed in April was just over $4.49.
The difference in annual primary tax burdens for the average Pima County homeowner between the proposed and approved rates is around $32, according to estimates previously provided by the county.
Because the $1.24 billion budget figure corresponds to a primary rate of around $4.39, the final budget total will be closer to $1.23 billion, Huckelberry told the Star after the meeting.
A 2-cent hike in the secondary property tax rate for the flood control district was approved by the board in May.
