It is often noted during election season that every voice matters. The voices of Navajo County’s managing officials were heard by county legislative advocates during its annual meeting with The Arizona Association of Counties (AACo) last week.
The Sept. 15 meeting was attended by County Attorney Brad Carlyon, who serves as AACo president, County Assessor Cammy Darris, who is the county’s AACo representative, and other county leaders.
AACo is the only state organization that represents all of the county officials and the governments they serve in the State of Arizona. AACo advances issues with the state and federal governments with the goal of improving the public’s understanding of county government, assists counties in collaborating on municipal solutions, and provides services to save counties and taxpayers money.
The Arizona State Legislature convenes on the second Monday of January each year, with its sessions typically lasting 100 days.
Civil asset forfeiture reform, aerial surveillance drone regulation, common sense reforms to public records requests and law enforcement body camera usage were discussed as topics slated on the upcoming 2016 legislative session agenda.
However, state budget allocations received the most prominent attention by the county staff audience during the Tuesday discussion.
AACo Senior Legislative Associate Trey Williams noted regarding the state’s preliminary budget focus that, “They’re looking at a sizeable surplus that they did not anticipate, so there is a lot of wrangling and conversation on what to do with that surplus, whether to put it toward more education funding, or to put more of it toward the ‘rainy day’ fund.”
At Marson’s invitation to suggest additional items for AACo to address to the legislature at the upcoming 2016 session, County Manager James Jayne broached the subject of transportation.
“What is the legislature ultimately going to do to develop a sustainable transportation funding source?” he asked. “They’ve taken $7 million, maybe $9 million out of the Highway User Revenue Fund (HURF) formula this year to help offset General Fund funding of the Department of Public Safety, but also because revenues are down in general because people are buying less fuel.”
Jayne referenced a presentation addressed by Assistant County Manager Homero Vela to the State House Transportation Committee last year that outlined in real terms the exhaustion of HURF funds and the resulting negative impact on rural Arizona counties.
Jayne continued, “The bottom line is the state has got to develop a sustainable funding source to fund our transportation infrastructure in the state, and they continue to refuse to build a position. They’re taking $97 million out of the HURF formula in fiscal year 2016. That has real impact on capital projects, and the maintenance of our streets and highways throughout the state. Currently, there really is not a plan that we’ve heard about to deal with the issue of highway funding in our state.”
Marson agreed that the topic is a valid one to be addressed in the legislative forum. “I think you’re totally right. I think this, perhaps, is an opportunity where local governments can band together. Maybe it’s an opportunity for us to have a global conversation amongst all local governments, because you’re right, I don’t think they have a plan. I think they’re going to stick to the education and law enforcement issues. It’s an election year, so we’re going to have to force that conversation a little more than we have before. Not to say that we haven’t been telling that story for years, but maybe we need a different approach. Maybe we need a more global approach,” she said.
Vela added, “The problem is bigger than just the raiding of HURF funds to be used for the Department of Public Safety. The big issue is, even if you were to return those funds back to the counties, cities and towns, you’ll find that the funding mechanism is inadequate, inappropriate. It doesn’t account for inflation. Whereas the cost of maintaining roads increased, that’s where the mechanism was generating those funds year after year because of less efficient vehicles.
“Fewer miles being traveled per year is a phenomenon that was unheard of 10 years ago; all of a sudden we turned a corner in the 2008 era, where people actually started to drive fewer miles because the millennial generation doesn’t like to drive as much. So the mechanism for collecting those revenues is flawed today. It’s actually diminishing and getting worse over time and something needs to be done,” he said.
Vela noted that the percentage of Navajo County roads at the point of replacement versus repair currently stands at five percent, “and is getting worse every year.”
Over the last five years, Vela said the county has made adjustments to accommodate its roads maintenance schedule as needed. However, he explained, “What people have a hard time understanding is that although some of our roads are in fairly good shape, over the last 10 years we’ve added zero miles to our maintained roads and that’s an injustice to our community. We should have been adding miles, but we didn’t. Why? Because we can’t afford to do so, and as a result we have a larger percentage of roads that are not maintained properly over time.”
Marson thanked Vela for clarifying the state of Navajo County’s roads, noting, “I’d not heard that kind of statistic before.”
She concluded, “Whether we like it or not, sometimes at the legislature we operate in a world of sound bites where we’re presented with one or two sentences, and people take that and run. Yours is a sentence that I hope that people will take and run.”
