Cochise County adopts tentative budgets for five light-improvement districts

The Cochise County Board of Supervisors, acting as the board of directors for local light improvement districts, adopted tentative budgets on June 10 for Bowie, Golden Acres, Naco, Porterville and SunSites to cover utility costs for street lights.

County staff told supervisors the districts are funded by secondary property-tax levies that voters in each district approved, and that available reserves (carryover) are used to lower tax rates when possible. Ms. Gilman, a county staff member presenting the items, said the budgets are primarily to pay utility bills and that when districts have cash contingencies the county lowers the tax rate accordingly.

"The budget for these light improvement districts is primarily to pay the utility costs of those lights," Ms. Gilman said. "When there is a carryover, there is a cash contingency. We work to make sure that that doesn't get overinflated so we're not overcharging our districts on their secondary tax rate."

Supervisor Gomez pressed staff about Porterville, where residents reported many nonworking lights. Gomez said she had canvassed the community and provided the county with lists of outages; she asked the clerk's office to coordinate follow-up with the utility provider. County staff said the clerk had coordinated with APS to repair lights in Porterville and that vandalism and abandoned trailers were factors in some outages.

"We need to have a policy to make sure the APS follows up and checks these lights at least twice a year and then reports back to us," Gomez said. "Porterville residents are paying an extra property tax; they should not be the ones repeatedly checking lights and reporting them to the county."

Ms. Gilman reminded the board that light-improvement districts are voter-approved measures and can be dissolved only by ballot initiative initiated by district residents. "If people are unhappy or don't like the light improvement district, they can always run a ballot initiative to have it removed," she said.

The board adopted the tentative budgets and recorded the following amounts and outcomes: Bowie — $14,183 (motion passed, tally recorded in the meeting as 3–0); Golden Acres — $8,388 (3–0); Naco — $9,931 (3–0); Porterville — $32,044 (3–0); SunSites — $33,484 (3–0). The minutes for the meeting’s consent item were also approved earlier in the meeting (recorded as carried 2–0).

Staff said the districts rely on reserves when available; when reserves fall short the county must raise rates to cover bills. The board also discussed annexation as a possible future change for Porterville, with supervisors noting that annexation terms — including responsibility for infrastructure and services — would be negotiated with any annexing city.

The Board recessed from the light-improvement district agenda to consider a separate library-district tentative budget and then adjourned the light improvement district meeting.