Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller is backing a state bill that would require extra financial disclosures from local governments seeking to borrow money for building projects.
The bill Miller lobbied for requires counties, municipalities and school districts to include more financial information on voter pamphlets for bond elections.
“It’s addressing the primary issues I saw in the last bond election,” Miller said.
Pima County voters in November rejected an $815 million bond plan that would have required an increase to the secondary tax rate to fund nearly 100 building projects.
The bill, HB 2402, which passed through a committee meeting on Monday, would require local governments to include the estimated tax impact from bonds at the maximum interest rate authorized by voters. It also would include the estimated total cost of the bond at the maximum interest rate authorized by the voters and a disclosure that primary tax rates could increase to pay for the maintenance and operation costs of bond projects.
The bill also would require a disclosure explaining that the spending authorization of the bond is for general purposes of the bond and not the proposed projects.
Miller said she was concerned that publicity pamphlets in the November bond election did not reflect the highest interest rate possible associated with the proposed bond sales.
Rather, the information published for the 2015 bond election reflected estimated interest rates of no more than 3.45 percent.
Miller said the payoff charts included with voter information should have reflected the maximum interest rate voters were being asked to approve, which was eight percent. County financial information shows recent bond sales carried 3.6 percent interest rates.
“I believe that is deceiving to voters,” Miller told state lawmakers at the Monday meeting.
Another concern Miller had was a lack of operations and maintenance costs included among voter information pamphlets.
While not included in the voter pamphlet, county officials did address the issue of ongoing cost associated with the proposed bond plan, estimating the maintenance and operations would have cost about $315 million over 25 years.
The obligations were to be spread among the jurisdictions based on location of the projects.
Miller told state lawmakers the intent of the bill was to provide more transparency for voters.
Some lawmakers, however, questioned the need for the law.
“Literally, your bill already exists in statute,” said Mark A. Cardenas, a Democrat representing Phoenix-area District 19.
Tucson-area Democrat Bruce Wheeler said voters in Pima County clearly understood what they were doing when they rejected the bond proposals in November.
“People understood exactly what was in there,” Wheeler said.
The bill will go through another committee meeting before being considered by the entire House.
