Yavapai County staff to prepare ballot question to raise jail district sales tax; supervisors back voter outreach

County management reviewed the history and funding structure of the jail district sales tax and presented the potential fiscal effect of increasing the district rate.

Mr. Berdan (county management) and staff told the board the jail district was created by voters in 1999 at a quarter‑cent sales tax and later extended. They said statute allows a county of Yavapai’s size to levy up to a half‑cent for a jail district. "If you increase it from the current quarter cent to a half cent... it would eliminate the general fund transfer and fully fund operations from the jail," Mr. Berdan told the board.

County staff estimated an increase to the half‑cent could produce approximately $16.2 million and would remove most of the current transfers from the general fund (currently estimated about $12 million above maintenance of effort), leaving only the statutory maintenance‑of‑effort transfer. Sheriff David Rhodes and several supervisors argued the change would more fairly allocate costs to visitors and non‑residents who pay sales tax in the county; Vice Chair Czech and Supervisor Jenkins said shifting funding away from property tax and toward a sales tax that captures visitor spending makes accounting and fairness sense.

Multiple supervisors also said any proposed sales‑tax increase should be paired with property‑tax relief. "If this goes from 0.25 to 0.5 and generates $16,000,000... that's 11,000,000 that's being transferred out of the general fund today," Supervisor Jenkins said, urging the board to return dollars to property taxpayers if the ballot measure passes.

County management said staff would develop ballot language and a public outreach plan and bring a formal question back to the board for approval. No formal ballot call was recorded in the study session; the transcript records direction to proceed with preparatory work and to present recommended language and schedule.