/ Modified may 17, 2017 9:37 a.m.

$100M Road Repair Plan Floated for Pima County

County chief proposes 25 cents of property tax be dedicated funding source.

car pothole hero A car travels near a pothole on a Tucson-area street.

Pima County should dedicate $100 million in property tax revenues for the next five years to pavement preservation and neighborhood street repairs in all parts of the county, the government's top administrator proposed Wednesday.

The proposal from County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry came the morning after city of Tucson voters approved a sales-tax increase to raise $250 million in five years, $100 million of which would go for street repairs and maintenance.

Chuck Huckelberry portrait Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.
AZPM

Huckelberry's proposal would include a small tax rate increase in its first year, costing the owner of a house with the county's median assessed valuation $18.47 more, a county press release said.

In the second through fifth years, the 25 cents dedicated to streets would be offset by lowering the overall rate that same amount, the press release said.

“As the Board of Supervisors is aware, every option to increase transportation investment for pavement preservation and road repair has been exhausted, not only this year but in previous years,” said Huckelberry's memo proposing the plan. “The state gas tax, which stands at 18 cents, has not been raised in 26 years."

The plan would raise $19.5 million in the next fiscal year and go up slightly in each of the subsequent four years as property values rise, the county press release said.

It said the money would be applied in both unincorporated parts of the county and in the cities and towns, because "the proposed 25-cent primary property tax would be levied countywide." The money would be doled out proportionally based on each municipality's assessed property value.

What Huckelberry calls the plan the Pavement Preservation, Road Surfacing and Repair Plan will be presented to the Board of Supervisors at its meeting next Tuesday.

By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona