“From EORP to tax revenues on coal, the County Supervisors Association (CSA) helped to guide Arizona’s 15 counties through the legislative process this year,” said CSA Executive Director Craig Sullivan in his county briefing of the Second Regular Session of Arizona’s 53rd Legislature at the Navajo County Board of Supervisors meeting on June 12.
“A lot of what was accomplished this year, you (the board) had a big influence on helping us,” said Sullivan. “The fact is when you are trying to do your jobs here locally; there are a lot of external entities that have the power and authority to implement how you are able to help your constituents, including government policy, state policy and decisions of the court. Similarly when we try to solve problems locally, these are the groups we go to.”
During the legislative session, 1,206 bills were introduced, of which 369 were sent to Governor Doug Ducey for consideration. Of those, 220 were relevant to Navajo County. Ducey signed 346 of those bills into law, five of which were initiated by CSA, vetoing 23. Included in those numbers was HB2003 that dealt with the tax revenues on coal.
The top priority of CSA was to eliminate recession-era cost shifts from the state to the counties, which included liabilities with the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections (ADJC), Arizona State Hospital (ASH) and Sexually Violent Persons (SVP), superior court judges’ salaries and Disproportionate Uncompensated Care Pool (DUC Pool) payments.
Another major push was to establish an Elected Officials Retirement Plan (EORP) circuit breaker that protects county taxpayers and the counties’ ability to meet the health, safety and welfare needs of their communities.
The solution for these issues proposed by CSA was three-fold:
* The state eliminates county cost shifts, which results in the proper aligning of costs across the government.
* Counties increase contributions to EORP liability thereby creating an actuarially sound solution.
* The state creates an EORP circuit breaker for 12 rural counties, which would promote state administration accountability.
As a result of the work of CSA and the county boards, Navajo County received a one-time relief for ADJC in the amount of $189,300; a discontinuance of the county’s portion of SVPs at ASH, providing $32,100 in ongoing savings; a discontinuance of the county’s portion of DUC Pool, providing $122,000 in ongoing savings; and an EORP Hold Harmless one-time relief in the amount of $217,600.
The county also received a Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 baseline relief in the amount of $561,800, which in effect wiped out the ongoing liability of $561,800 for EORP for FY2019.
The impact from the new Highway Safety Fee through the Highway User Revenue Fund Restoration gained the county an additional $196,357 for FY2019.
“We had an ambitious agenda this year,” noted Sullivan. “As we had the threat of the need to address the Elected Official Retirement Plan. We also wanted to have a big conversation with the legislature to get out of the cost shifts. We are pretty proud that a substantial amount of what the counties asked for was included in the budget with varying degrees of success.”
The CSA has also upgraded their research and data collection to provide a greater wealth of information and analysis across all 15 counties on issues that drive their legislative agenda. “We have built a master data base that is available to the supervisors and professional staff,” said Sullivan. “It has 73 different sets of information by county and time; a robust 25 page county encyclopedia, which is a great tool; and 55 advocacy documents.”
More information on the legislative session can be found at www.countysupervisors.org.
