The City of Winslow felt the first bite of its expired 1% sales tax in September, Finance Director Daniel Hendrix told the Winslow City Council last week and he expects revenue to keep sliding until voters decide on a replacement tax Nov. 3.
General fund revenue for September was $661,720, bringing the year-to-date total to $2.7 million or 27% of budget with 25% of the fiscal year gone. General fund spending for the month was $935,787 and the year-to-date total of nearly $3.2 million is 28% of budget. Citywide, the city took in $1.7 million in September and spent $1.7 million. For the year, it has collected nearly $6 million and spent $6.5 million.
“You may note that revenues are down a little bit from prior months,” Hendrix said. “We do expect a downturn in general fund revenues as tourists stop being as frequent this time of year. But this is also the first month that we’ve really been impacted by the expiration of the 1% sales tax. And so we expect revenues to continue to decline as we go into the next few months.” He said the replacement tax on the November ballot “will be a new tax, but it replaces the one that expired,” and added, “hopefully we won’t see that decline forever.”
Earlier in the meeting, Janet Dean, Arizona Public Service (APS) public affairs manager and Cholla plant manager Dusty Wood presented the utility’s plan to convert two retired coal units at the Cholla Power Plant to natural gas. Dean cautioned that it is not final. “You notice I’m saying plan and potential,” she said. She said APS still needs a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility from the Arizona Corporation Commission and is working through Navajo County requirements before it can officially promise the conversion.
Wood said the converted units would produce roughly 360 to 380 megawatts, down from about 900 when four coal units ran and that a new 35-mile, 20-inch Transwestern gas line would feed the plant. He said the schedule has moved up.
“Earlier we talked about the construction beginning in 2028. We’re actually going to begin construction in 27. In fact, there is stuff going on there today,” he said.
Turbine work started this year, he said and the first unit is expected online in “January of 2029. It’s a very aggressive schedule.” He said the plant will employ fewer people than it did on coal but many former employees want to return and contractors will handle decommissioning and conversion at the same time.
APS officials said earlier this year they expect the new plant to directly employ less than 40 people with a few more contractors and local businesses getting more work for things like cleaning services that APS said they previously would have been done internally.
Cano asked whether the conversion cost would land “on the backs of rate payers.” Wood said the 380 megawatts is meant to sustain existing customer growth rather than data centers or semiconductor plants and that for those large loads “growth pays for growth, right? So that it’s not hitting current rate payers.”
Dean later clarified the Cholla plant is for the general customer base, “so yes, the cost of that plant will come into play for customers down the road once it’s in service. There will be, you’ll see that come into our rate base.” Large manufacturing and data center projects, she said, “that’s going to have to pay for itself.” However, the cost of converting a power plant is much less burdensome on rate payers than building the infrastructure from scratch.
Asked about the Winslow substation, Dean said APS has no timeline for an upgrade. Based on historic growth, including the new gas stations, truck stops and hotel, she said APS projects capacity through “sometime in the early 2030s” but it is waiting on load projections from GLD Partners before starting a formal process.
Broadband came up twice during the council meeting. During Navajo County Supervisor Fern Benally’s quarterly report, she said the county’s middle mile project is complete and that APS is working to connect it at the Cholla plant. Councilman Jim MacLean pressed her on it. “You mentioned that the middle mile fiber project is complete and you know Winslow was left off of that project,” he said. “We talk about economic development, but yet we’re behind the rest of the county now without that high-speed internet.” He asked, “What’s your strategy for expediting that plan so that we can get caught up with the rest of the county?”
Benally said she would take the concern to the other supervisors and the county manager. “I apologize for leaving the City of Winslow behind on that,” she said.
MacLean put the same question to APS. Dean said the utility’s fiber loop, which was overbuilt to leave dark fiber available for rural communities, has been slowed by federal, state and tribal permitting and a full NEPA review with the Forest Service, “which is taking years. Early 2029, I know it’s not great timing and it’s don’t hold me to that. That’s latest projections,” she said. She said APS is looking at other partners who might speed that up, has a new project manager and that routes expected to finish first now look like they will finish later.
In other business, the council:
* Approved past meeting minutes and the check register.
* Approved reappointment of David Coolidge, Ken Evans and Jim MacLean to the Municipal Property Corporation.
* Accepted two $10,000 grants from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety related to traffic and DUI enforcement.
* Approved a contract with Stage One Business Solutions to provide free business advice to local residents at annual cost of $20,000.
* Authorized a grant application for airport redesign to Arizona Department of Transportation Aeronautics for $181,108.
* Approved a resolution to provide emergency services assistant to the chamber of commerce for the annual Christmas parade.
