November 2015 would not have seemed to be the best time to ask the electorate of Montezuma County to pass two revenue measures. The Republican presidential race has been dominated by calls for smaller, less expensive government.
Local voters, though, are wise enough to know that taxation is the best way to ensure that crucial services remain available.
Montezuma County Hospital District voters passed a limited sales tax measure to fund expansion of the hospital. The tax was carefully crafted to exclude most groceries, prescription drugs, residential utilities, and non-licensed farm equipment. Those exclusions helped voters to see that the district’s leaders cared about funding the hospital’s needs (which closely align with the community’s medical needs) without causing undue hardship to taxpayers.
The hospital and its associated clinics provide quality care locally. While some patients always will prefer to go elsewhere, the availability of services locally is essential not only to residents’ health but to the local economy. The hospital is a strong financial contributor to the community, and its existence makes the area more attractive to those who are considering moving here. Consolidating services on one campus will make the provision of care more convenient and potentially more cost effective.
The measure passed 51 percent to 49 percent.
By an even greater margin, 61-39, voters opted to freeze the Dolores Water Conservancy District’s mill levy. On the surface, that sounds like a tax-limiting measure, but it allows the district to hold the mill levy steady as property valuations increase, rather than “ratcheting down” the tax rate to hold total collections level as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights requires.
That makes good sense, because although demand for water will increase as the population and economy grow, the amount of water available will not. If climate-change projections are accurate, it may decrease significantly. That means the challenges of managing what we do have will grow, conflicts are likely, and more expensive technology may be necessary to ensure that every drop goes where it should. As the water storage and delivery system ages, maintenance also will grow more costly.
Montezuma County even voted “yes” on a measure that allows state to keep $66 million worth of marijuana taxes despite an accounting error that could have forced the money to be refunded to taxpayers and pot growers. Perhaps voters thought the refund they would receive personally was too small to justify the paperwork and costs involved. (It was.) Perhaps they liked the way the state proposed to spend the money, including $40 million for school construction. Or perhaps they just didn’t want marijuana growers to receive a refund.
Surprisingly, 69 percent of the county’s voters opted to let the state keep the money, a higher percentage than the statewide figure of 66 percent.
Those three “yes” votes don’t involve high costs. The pot-tax refund would have been $16 per taxpayer at most; most would have been in single digits. The water district measure will only cost property owners more money when their property value increase. The hospital sales tax amounts to 4 cents on a $10 purchase.
But the passage of the three measures may signal a return to the more traditional conservativism of the past, in which voters were careful about allowing taxing entities to spend money, but they weren’t entirely opposed to taking collective responsibility for funding essential services. That’s a positive development, and a welcome sign that local taxpayers are willing to consider requests on their own merits, rather than just saying “no” to all.
