Just a little FYI and update regarding the County Budget coming up for final vote on August 7th -

The language in ARS §42-17107 for the truth in taxation changed this year and now includes a provision that a primary tax increase exceeding 15% requires unanimous BOS approval. The truth in taxation calculations show this amount to be a 24¢ increase. This means the maximum amount the primary property tax could increase with a BOS majority vote is 24¢ (from $1.96 to $2.20). The tentative budget includes the option to increase the tax by 52¢ (from $1.96 to $2.48); however, doing so would require a unanimous vote.

Thank you, Sarah Hall.  Will update with the statute.

I have no opinion on which department EXCESS reserves should be taken as I don't have historical data, but there are MANY millions in EXCESS reserves. 

I don't understand why this is so difficult and why they don't request a budget including the actual expenses for each of the last 5 years.  That way you can see historical trends, you take into account any future liabilities that might require the reserves and within just a few hours you have the PERFECT solution!

No cutbacks, no layoffs and an extra $5 million for the Sheriff.

I will add my commentary later.

Bishop's vision is apparently to open as many mines as possible and to attract more factories.

My vision is to attract more RESIDENTS and TOURISTS.  

Open the Mohave County Bank, provide incentives (low or no interest loans) to the medical community to improve the quality of healthcare and do what it takes to encourage LOCALS to grow organic food.   I've been told that Mohave Valley is so polluted that it's impossible to grow organically.

It's the catch 22 -- I know many people who'd love to live here, but won't because of the lack of culture, organic locally grown food and state of the art medical care including holistic.  And of course doctors need patients and stores need customers, so this is a slow process and that's why it's a vision and not the to-do list for next week.

I'd like to see the actual calculations for the impact of 100 mining jobs on our economy.

How do mining jobs compare to tourists renting rooms, eating at restaurants, etc.?

How do they compare to retirees moving here?  

The retirees contribute an enormous amount of money to the economy as they RECEIVE their money from the feds or pensions and they SPEND it here.  

I actually do much of my shopping in Henderson / Vegas because the food in Kingman is mostly toxic pesticide and herbicide laden processed CRAP.  But most people shop in Kingman, get hair cuts, go to restaurants, buy cars and have their cars repaired in Mohave County.

Of course the BIG ONE is medical care.  

The money to pay for most senior citizens' medical care comes from insurance and one person can easily rack up hundreds of thousands in medical bills.  There's no tax on medical care, but think of the JOBS they are creating.  That money pays the doctors and nurses and janitors ...

These seniors don't take anyone's job away and they have no kids, but they pay for the schools.  They have so few needs and contribute so much!

How do these mining and factory jobs compare to retirees?

I'd love to see a diverse population living happy, long and healthy lives in the most beautiful county anywhere!

I'm going to post here Supervisor Bishop's lies and misrepresentations and then annotate the video, note the start times and transcribe what exactly was said.

It's been a long day and I'll be very busy the next few days, but just from memory:

• At the end of the video Bishop states that Dolan Springs gets ROADS from the property tax increase.   I've demanded that the County make emergency repairs after floods on our roads and she had said that ONLY HURF funds are used for roads.  That's probably also addressed in the 2016 GV forum video and/or the Meadview 8/16 roads meeting video.
• Regarding the SWEEPS -- the state has been taking money from our county funds, I believe since 2008.  Bishop said she does not want to sweep money from departments with EXCESS reserves because that's like "stealing", just as if the state took it.  

  It is "stealing" when the STATE takes our funds.   Bishop doesn't get that when we "sweep" money from one department to another, it's NOT stealing!   It just means that we allocated too many funds and so we correct that by allocating LESS in the 2018 budget and then give the money to the sheriff.

• To explain to the audience how the tax increase will affect property owners, Bishop used the figures INCLUDING the reassessment.  OBVIOUSLY that does NOT indicate how much the increase will cost home owners because many properties are assessed at a lower value than last year.   How STUPID does Bishop think we are?
• The pension debt -- I'm still confused, is it really NOT a debt, but just a loan to the state and we later reduce our payments?
• Bishop stated that it's stupid to pay interest and that's why she wants the tax increases.   She is clearly in lala land, not aware that many homeowners carry credit card debt at a much higher interest rate than what the county would pay.   Essentially she is shifting the interest burden to the property owners and they will pay MUCH higher interest rates than the county.
• The general fund is almost $8 million OVER budget!  The total "Excess Reserves Available" including the General Fund is $30 million. And Supervisor Jean Bishop wants to raise taxes, unreal ...

I don't think that Bishop is an evil person out to screw us, but it looks like she just doesn't understand finance and budgets.  It's not easy, but after two years on the job, you'd think she'd get a clue. 

Unfortunately, she won't ask for or accept help and she outright REFUSED to provide any documents to me, blocked me on Facebook since last year and ignored my email requesting info about this town hall meeting and about the budget.

Jean Bishop needs to resign.

https://resources.mohavecounty.us/Repository/Calendar/07-03-2017b2bf6fe9-9da5-4176-8034-b58407500da7.pdf

46. Discussion and possible action RE: Review of available options to cover the budget shortfall without instituting tax increases.

Docs for Item 46:

https://lfportal.mohavecounty.us/bos/0/doc/1116582/Page1.aspx

NOTHING!

"If the budget were adopted with this rate, the taxes on a $100,000 home would reflect a truth in taxation increase from $195.16 to $248.96, an increase of $53.80 over the truth in taxation rate."

VERY misleading! They should explain that MC only gets 23.46% of the TOTAL property tax.

The tax and budget related items are at the VERY end, items 57 and 1.

The SCANNED images of documents, deliberately converted to images to make it difficult to analyze and impossible to search and to copy/paste:

https://lfportal.mohavecounty.us/bos/DocView.aspx?dbid=0&id=1122098&page=1&cr=1

I ran it through OCR, but I can't guarantee accuracy:

08072017-Special-Mtg-Item-001-OCR.pdf

And here is all kinds of INTERESTING info on the tax increase:

2017-8-7-BOS-agenda-57-OCR.pdf

ALL docs related to the 8/7/17 meeting:

https://lfportal.mohavecounty.us/bos/Browse.aspx?startid=189721

Arizona Senator Sonny Borrelli addressed the BOS at the beginning of the 7/3/17 BOS meeting regarding these "shifts" (thefts).

Subject: Dolan Springs town hall meeting re property tax tomorrow?

Ms. Bishop,

I read on Facebook that there's a meeting scheduled in Dolan Springs tomorrow. I searched the web for "jean bishop dolan springs property tax increase" and link # 1 was an old Miner article, links # 2 - 7 were for posts at my sites.  I found nothing relevant.

Could you please direct me to the published notice about this event?

Presumably you advertised it on Facebook, but since you blocked me, I obviously don't see those posts.

Thank you,

Christine Baker

8/4/17

Ms. Bishop,

The response to my 8/1/17 request for more information was apparently sent by your assistant Marianne Salem. She provided a link that contained NO additional information and I asked her WHERE I can find the answers to my questions. I have not received a response.

What is going on?

You don't have answers?

Christine Baker

"Johnson points to other instances of what he says is unwise county spending including a $50,000 expenditure in 2015 to stock trout in the lower Colorado River near Davis Dam."

But also: "“My vote was not against the fish, but against the funding source,” Johnson said in a previous interview. “We are sweeping funds from a fund that is self-sufficient."

Which is it, Supervisor Johnson?

https://kdminer.com/news/2017/aug/03/supervisors-remain-odds-spending-habits/

While the solution has yet to be agreed upon, county supervisors are at odds on how they’ve gotten into debt. Last year the county was able to absorb a more than $1 million budget deficit, but not so this year.

Supervisor Buster Johnson and others have said the county is in its budget dilemma because of its own overspending habits.

“It’s kind of crazy when we keep spending,” Johnson said. “Look at the last board meeting and paying $12,000 a month on a lobbyist and $395 an hour for a lawyer on water rights issues, and then we are asking to raise taxes.”

Johnson points to other instances of what he says is unwise county spending including a $50,000 expenditure in 2015 to stock trout in the lower Colorado River near Davis Dam.

“I seriously don’t understand what Supervisor Johnson is referring to,” said Supervisor Hildy Angius. “We spent this money to save a $74 million industry in Mohave County, and yes, that was one of my contributions to the spending and I think it was a good one. If stocking fish in the river was halted, it would have affected many places including Lake Havasu City. If the District 3 supervisor didn’t think that was a good idea, I wonder about his commitment to the economy.”

Johnson was the lone vote against the fish purchase that swept the necessary money from the county’s parks department.

“My vote was not against the fish, but against the funding source,” Johnson said in a previous interview. “We are sweeping funds from a fund that is self-sufficient. If we continue to do this, our parks department will no longer be able to operate on their revenues alone.”

To cover the current projected budget shortfall, county supervisors have proposed similar funding shifts with the latest coming from Angius.

In totality, including tapping into as much as $1.8 million in restricted funds, Angius’ budget suggestions could result in the financial shuffling of $6.2 million to $6.7 million to address the county’s most immediate financial needs.

“If we want to look at spending, I am all for it,” Angius said. “I think we spend too much on vehicle replacements, and as the sheriff has said, it’s nice to have shiny new cars, but if we don’t have bodies to put in them, what is the point? I am open to looking at spending, but we all have a part in what has happened during the last couple of years. It’s not just a couple of supervisors. We have all agreed on certain expenditures.”

Regardless of which camp is correct, Lake Havasu City Mayor Mark Nexsen said his counterparts at the county could take a page out of his playbook in dealing with a tough budget 10 years ago by leaving no financial stone unturned.

“When I came on board we had a sewer project that was over budget and we were headed into the middle of the Great Recession,” Nexsen said. “Instead of spending down our reserves to maintain our lifestyle, I chose to reduce our lifestyle by making cuts to personnel that exceeded 20 percent.”

With its remaining workforce, the city then turned its attention to reorganization and consolidation of its departments.

“I have always been a believer that I would rather make the difficult cuts where we must, because eventually if you don’t, it will come back to haunt you,” Nexsen said. “Too many cities today struggle because they didn’t make the adjustments they should have years ago. Even though the cuts we made were painful … as of April our general fund reserve was somewhere in the neighborhood of more than $30 million.”

In what kind of country can you get THAT screwed?  There has to be legal recourse.

Has anyone talked to the legislators involved?