We have been involved and concerned Santa Cruz County citizens in many matters, and we have been trying to understand the current ballot proposal for Proposition 417, aka, A resolution proposing a permanent adjustment to the state-imposed 1979-80 expenditure base for Santa Cruz County.  Basically, this proposition would allow the County to increase its expenditures over the current State cap. After reviewing the County’s website on this matter, https://www.santacruzcountyaz.gov/1099/Expenditure-Limitation; we are still lacking details.  Therefore, we plan to vote against this measure in spite of this claim on the County’s website:

Is this a tax increase?

NO. Adjusting the Annual Expenditure Limitation:

  • Does not increase property taxes.
  • Does not increase sales taxes.
  • Does not create new fees.

While this may be true for several years, we do not have faith that the County has sufficiently studied or educated the populace in how this would work out into the future.  Some immediate questions we had include, where are the internal County data analyses and narratives used to develop the modeling showing the increasing revenues allowing for this increase in expenditures?  What happens in a downturn in the economy or for that matter, global price fluctuations in mining production and product costs?  Right now, all we see is a graph showing very optimistic forecasting of expenditures out to FY 40/41.  NO DETAILS.  NO PLANS.  This effort is too much of “Trust us and vote for our proposition”.

We are in favor of robust County services and maintenance. We support the idea that the County could, with this proposition, fund more programs and improvements. However, there is a very real risk that, once the County has committed to expenditures, such as improved roads or increased health services, say, there could be a serious downturn in revenue coming in, especially from mining. Then, funding would not be there for those programs, but we may be bound to continue paying for them. The County would have to increase taxes.

The County has not educated us and other citizens about how they came up with these numbers and what they will do if the numbers don’t match the increased cost of programs they put in place. As far as we know, only one piece of information has been sent out, and only to those who sign up for County news. And only one public presentation was planned, in Rio Rico. With voting starting October 7th, we believe they have rushed the process. Maybe in two years they can convince us to vote for a similar proposition, but we hope Prop 417 doesn’t pass.

Chuck and Sarah Klingenstein
Patagonia