TUCSON, Ariz. — The city of Tucson's inviting the community to hear more and share their thoughts on a tentatively-adopted change to their property tax levy.
City leaders are proposing a 6.61% increase in their primary property tax rate, the maximum allowable increase.
City leaders say this happens every year since they need to fund core city services like police, fire and roads, but overall, what Tucsonans will pay to the city is lower than last year.
That's because the city's secondary tax rate, which funds large past purchases and projects, and primary tort rate, which goes to paying lost lawsuits against the city, are both going down.
Ward Two Councilmember Paul Cunningham says that the cumulative tax rate the city's asking fro has gone down nearly every year for the past six years.
“Believe it or not since 2019, the city of Tucson’s portion of the property tax has gone down about four bucks a month," Cunningham said. "It’s not a lot but we kinda get looped in with increasing property taxes and that’s just not the case.”
The city's tax levy makes up a small part of what Tucsonans pay in their property taxes since those taxes also benefit school districts, Pima Community College and the county.
While Pima county is raising their property tax rate by 2.5%, a memo says to to offset financial uncertainty, Cunningham says the City of Tucson's doing the opposite.
“We’ve retired some debt," he said. "We haven’t borrowed as much money, and we haven’t lost in court as much.”
Still, the primary rate was raised "because that’s all that’s allowed. It gives us an extra like 100,000 bucks every year.”
Though he admits it isn't much money to help the city fight off their budget woes, it will still help out.
“We’re always strapped for cash when it comes to delivering core services and service delivery,” Cunningham said.
The City's holding a public hearing Tuesday June 3 during their regularly scheduled Mayor and Council Meeting.
