Property owners expected to pay less tax with consolidation

Property owners in the Cottonwood-Oak Creek and Mingus Union High School districts should expect a decrease in their taxes if voters decide to consolidate the two districts.

Clarkdale-Jerome property owners would save even more in their taxes, in most cases more than twice as much of a savings as Cottonwood-Oak Creek and Mingus property owners.

That information comes from the consolidation information pamphlet Yavapai County School Superintendent Tim Carter released a week ago. The consolidation information pamphlet will be mailed to voters no later than Sept. 29.

The consolidation pamphlet includes estimated figures for four property tax scenarios based on the current fiscal year. According to the pamphlet, Carter obtained the information contained in the scenarios from the Yavapai County Assessor’s Office and Arizona Department of Education School Finance Division to make these estimates.

“All references are approximate only,” the document states.

Estimates

What that means, Carter said Friday, is that school finance is unlike any other type of finance.

“I know some very bright CPAs and they just shake their heads and ask, ‘how do you work with this?’” Carter said. “What we’ve done is we’ve taken current data right now and we’re making some assumptions. We assume (Clarkdale-Jerome) would do as they’d been doing, but that they’d pay tuition. But that’s up to the Clarkdale-Jerome board.”

“Everything is an estimation on assumptions we’d outlined,” Carter said.

A private non-profit taxpayer organization funded by over 400 Arizona businesses and individuals, Arizona Tax Research Association (ATRA), helped Carter’s office gather information used in the property tax scenarios.

Should voters decide to consolidate the Cottonwood-Oak Creek Elementary and Mingus Union High School districts, Clarkdale-Jerome would not be part of the new district. ATRA President Kevin McCarthy explained that Clarkdale-Jerome property owners would continue to pay for the Mingus Union bond, but only based on their student population actually attending the new unified district.

Rather than paying their share of the bond through a secondary tax, Clarkdale-Jerome would pay tuition to send students to Mingus Union, with that money being paid in their primary tax.

Although it’s much like paying from one’s right pocket rather than their left pocket, the bottom line, McCarthy explained, is that Clarkdale-Jerome voters will pay less than before.

“It’s so complicated,” McCarthy said Monday. “It’s a lot of work, a lot of lawyers involved.”

Once Clarkdale-Jerome’s responsibility toward the bond is met, the district’s property owners would pay even less in taxes, McCarthy also said.

Estimated tax savings

According to four scenarios based on the current property tax year, Cottonwood taxpayers would see a decrease of anywhere between $9 and $50 with a unified district.

For a home with a limited property value of about $150,000, that property owner would pay $17 less in taxes.

A Clarkdale or Jerome property owner whose home has a limited property value of about $150,000 would pay $49 less in property taxes.

According to those same four property tax scenarios, Clarkdale-Jerome taxpayers would see a decrease of anywhere between $24 and $98.

The consolidation of the Cottonwood-Oak Creek and Mingus Union school districts will be on the Nov. 3 ballot.

-- Follow Bill Helm on Twitter @AZShutterbug42


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