The State Senate passed a bill on Monday sponsored by Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Mesa) that will require a two-thirds majority for county supervisors, city and town councils to raise taxes. SB 1013, which passed 17-12 down party lines, also requires the same majority to increase assessments and fees, and preempts further regulation by municipalities and counties due to it being a matter of statewide concern.
In a video released on X, Warren said, “I’ve heard from many of you that you have been concerned about how much taxes, water bills and fees have been going up at your local government, your city or your county.” He also released a statement which further explained his reasoning for bringing the bill. “I’ve received a number of concerns and complaints from Arizonans who are frustrated with recent hikes on taxes and fees, especially in this era of inflation,” he said. “We want government to be more efficient with taxpayer dollars, and this is a step in the right direction.”
“This commonsense taxpayer protection requires the same threshold from local governments as the Legislature when raising or imposing fees. We want to make sure government fully funds its obligations, but we also want to protect our citizens from unnecessary taxation,” he added.
Fountain Hills Town Councilman Allen Skillicorn submitted his support for the bill at the state legislature. He told The Arizona Sun Times, “Tax hikes hurt good people. Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, I call them corruptocrats, always want more of your money. We need to start helping the people instead.”
State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), who chairs the Senate Committee on Director Nominations, criticized the bill during a Senate Government Committee hearing. “Just to be very clear, local government is the legislature, okay, the legislature is local government,” he said. “Cities and counties are political subdivisions of the state, school districts, okay? Everything below the legislature, they’re political subdivisions to say they exist because we all allow them to exist, because our statutes and/or our constitution allowed them to exist. So when we talk about local control, what we actually are talking about is the House and the Senate that is the proper place for local control.”
Hoffman said the lobbyists for lower levels of government claiming that they will lose $200 million aren’t revealing the whole picture. “That represents a fraction of a fraction of 1 percent of their budgets,” he said. He listed off how big the annual budgets are for some of the cities, such as $2.13 billion for Phoenix and $2.56 billion for Mesa, and so $200 million from all Arizona cities combined is miniscule.
