A conceptual drawing of Spaceport America. (Courtesy photo)
After nine months, three Doña Ana County school districts still haven’t started receiving money from the spaceport tax, which has been collected by businesses in the county since the first of the year, according to a report in the Las Cruces Sun-News.
County Commissioner Karen Perez blames the delay on ambiguous wording in the original resolution for the spaceport tax, which was narrowly approved by county voters in 2007 — 50.6 percent to 49.4 percent.
A quarter of the tax revenue collected from the 1/4-percent tax — $4.2 million to date, according to the state Taxation and Revenue Department — is supposed to be allocated to education, while the balance is dedicated to repaying bonds used for construction of Spaceport America.
The delay in the money reaching classrooms is caused by a dispute between county and school officials. School board members told the newspaper they want to use their expertise to allocate funds flowing into the county. Commissioners said they want to ensure proper oversight of the money.
In June, Doña Ana County commissioners planned to consider a contract with the area’s three school districts, but delayed a vote because the language in the contract did not specify clearly how the revenue would be spent.
Las Cruces School Board Member Chuck Davis told the Sun-News that he thought the distribution formula would be based on each district’s student counts. He said he wants county commissioners to trust the school boards.
“We’re better qualified to look where we need to put the money to further that, and they should trust us to know what we’re doing,” he was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “I think the original agreement was that we spend the money for those programs that would support educating Doña Ana County students to better serve the spaceport.”
County Commissioner Scott Krahling and Perez have said they simply want to ensure there’s proper fiscal oversight of the money.
“Technically, it’s not the school districts’ money, it’s the county’s money, and we said we’d spend it on spaceport-related education projects,” Krahling told the Sun-News. “We don’t want to tell them how to educate kids, but before we give up control of this money, we want to make sure we’re doing it in the fairest of ways.”
Perez told the newspaper, “We can’t take taxpayer money and write some sort of carte blanche check to the schools.”
While attorneys for each side are busy working on a new version of the contract, Krahling has suggested the commission have a combined meeting with the Hatch, Gadsden and Las Cruces school boards. That may have to wait until the current negotiations have been completed.
Meanwhile county commissioners have also asked that the districts incorporate higher education, teacher training and charter schools into their spending plan.
The $200 million, state-owned spaceport is a proposed launch site for commercial space vehicles. It’s being constructed in Sierra County.