{"id":614289,"date":"2018-08-14T17:18:14","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T23:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=614289"},"modified":"2018-08-14T17:18:14","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T23:18:14","slug":"the-city-of-las-cruces-is-at-it-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/08\/the-city-of-las-cruces-is-at-it-again\/","title":{"rendered":"The City of Las Cruces is at it again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Las

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

Las Cruces City Hall<\/p><\/div>\n

COMMENTARY:\u00a0<\/strong>Las Cruces voters are currently casting mail-in ballots to decide the fate of a proposed property-tax hike aimed at generating millions of dollars for various expenditures that proponents claim will improve the city\u2019s \u201cquality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there is often a good deal of misinformation about the overall size and impact of tax hikes, especially increases in property taxes. Voters need all the facts before making their decisions.<\/p>\n

\"Paul

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Paul Gessing<\/p><\/div>\n

The 2.1 percent millage rate hike now being considered represents a 7.3 percent tax increase for most residential property owners. That is a sizeable expansion, especially given the rapid rate of growth in the city\u2019s gross receipts tax.<\/p>\n

Today, the GRT rate in Las Cruces is 8.3125 percent. Back in 2014, that rate was \u201cjust\u201d 7.5625 percent — meaning that the levy\u2019s burden expanded by approximately 10 percent over the last four years alone.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the property-tax hike, including the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, cite \u201cinvestments\u201d made by competing cities, such as El Paso. But the Sun City has not increased its sales tax in recent memory. And remember that El Paso is part of Texas, a state without an income tax. Yet Las Cruces\u2019s neighbor to the south is growing its economy rapidly.<\/p>\n

Since May 2009 \u2013 the month before the nation\u2019s recovery from the Great Recession started \u2013 El Paso has seen job growth from 277,000 to 318,200, a 15 percent increase. Over the same period, Las Cruces has seen job growth from 69,400 to 70,800, only a 2 percent increase. So El Paso\u2019s growth rate has surpassed Las Cruces\u2019s by a factor of 7.5<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Workers flocking to El Paso have, not surprisingly, boosted overall economic output (and prosperity). Since the end of the Great Recession, El Paso\u2019s gross domestic product grew from $23.4 billion to $25.4 billion. In contrast, Las Cruces\u2019s GDP actually dropped<\/em> from $6.3 billion to $6.0 billion. This means that even though the number of jobs rose slightly in Las Cruces over the last decade, the real value of their work actually fell.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear: Raising taxes is a foolish strategy if the goal is to boost a city\u2019s quality of life. Growing the economy must come first — then the focus can be on tennis courts, dog parks, and biking trails. If there are other \u201cinvestments\u201d already in place that make these new spending proposals impossible, then it becomes an issue of priorities. The political leadership of Las Cruces needs to make some tough decisions and voters need to hold them accountable.<\/p>\n

Notably, as has been widely reported, the city has been collecting GRT on the \u201chold-harmless\u201d prior to that source of revenue being eliminated. In other words, taxes have been raised in anticipation of revenues (from the state) being phased out over 15 years.<\/p>\n

If quality-of-life expenditures are such a high priority, then perhaps some of the \u201csurplus\u201d GRT being collected today could be allocated to these projects. The City of Albuquerque shifted operating dollars to a capital project several years ago to build the Paseo del Norte and I-25 interchange. There shouldn\u2019t be a problem if Las Cruces were to do the same. We\u2019re talking about a surplus of $6.3 million in 2018 alone, on top of what the city has already collected. That\u2019s been \u201cplay\u201d money for politicians to spend for the last few years. It\u2019s time voters made politicians put that money to work, if these \u201cinvestments\u201d are so critical.<\/p>\n

Las Cruces is a beautiful city, with many natural and man-made assets, but like New Mexico as a whole, it tends to suffer from economic mismanagement. While it is unlikely that state leadership in Santa Fe will do what needs to be done to compete with low-tax, right-to-work places like El Paso, this month, local voters have an opportunity to kill a sizable \u2013 and completely unnecessary \u2013 tax hike.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Paul Gessing is the president of New Mexico\u2019s\u00a0Rio Grande Foundation<\/a>, an independent, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.\u00a0Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raising taxes is a foolish strategy if the goal is to boost a city\u2019s quality of life. Growing the economy must come first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":790,"featured_media":71632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[145,271],"class_list":["post-614289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-las-cruces","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/790"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}