For the City of Prescott you could call it an emergency. Fire and police departments are stretched beyond their limits.
After four months of studies and reports from February to May, the City Council and supportive citizens organized a long-overdue effort to address lengthening response times and understaffing in the form of a sales-tax proposition.
Prescott’s Proposition 478 on the November ballot aims to “keep Prescott safe” by increasing the sales tax by .95%, meaning 95 cents for every $100 spent, for ten years to cover the cost of building new fire and police stations in northern Prescott and renovating others, all of which are more than 30 years old.
Our population has nearly doubled in that time, from 26,455 in 1990 to 48,946 in 2023. After ten years the tax would drop to .75%, which would help cover higher staff costs. The website keepprescottsafe.com and dozens of public-information meetings have covered the need for more funding in depth. Proposition 478 arguments include:
> A new fire station in northern Prescott is necessary to cover the growing area and service demands.
> More staff is necessary to cover shifts, and fire and police staff are regularly working overtime. The results are higher personnel costs overall, falling morale and high turnover.
> A new police station, which would be located with the fire station, is needed because the current one has already exceeded its 20-year lifespan and lacks climate-controlled storage for evidence, necessary for preserving it. Evidence storage in the police station is required to maintain the legal chain of custody.
> The shortages of staff and stations could lead to even higher response times and higher insurance costs. New revenue is urgently needed to avoid loss of life, and it may prevent a downgrade in the City’s fire rating, which would raise insurance costs for all of us.
Over the past three decades average fire-department response time increased from six to eleven minutes due to population growth, twice as many 911 calls, and housing growth, now spreading over 43 square miles. With heavier traffic and housing more distant from the city center, it takes longer for police and fire crews to reach emergency locations.
City Council Member Lois Fruhwirth spoke to the public on Prop. 478 at a Council meeting, explaining that it was the result of a great deal of back and forth with our police and fire chiefs over what was reasonable and necessary to address the dire need for a new facility and more competitive staff salaries. She said no one got exactly what they wanted, but that the projected income from the tax hike would address the most important needs.
“It ebbs and flows with the seasonal folks, and here you can see that in 2023 we had almost 45,000 calls,” Fruhwirth said. “That equates to about every person in the city of Prescott calling 911 at least once. Calls to the police department were up 7% versus the previous year, but our staffing has not been keeping up with that rate of year-over-year growth.”
On September 10 Council addressed public concerns about how the funds would be used by limiting the definition of “public-safety services” to police and fire in City code and by requiring that Prop. 478 funds be deposited in an account separate from the general fund with specific rules for their use, reporting and public oversight. Much of the public concern came from actions by past councils, which took funds meant for public open space and spent them on roads instead. Because the Open Space proposition language was vague and provided the option to use some of the funds for roads, a court ruled that doing so was within Council purview.
An anonymous anti-tax group called No to 478 calls it a “regressive” tax, proposed due to irresponsible city governance. The group proposes more than doubling impact fees (applied according to square footage) for all new residential and commercial construction from a projected average of $11,000 to $25,000 per project, along with a much lower sales tax of .2% for three years, raising only $2.35 million per year for a total of $7.05 million.
Council Member Cathey Rusing said a complaint has been filed with the City about the unregistered group, which has 30 days to respond or file as a political action committee. Any group that is politically active and has exceeded the spending threshold of more than $500 in goods or services must do so. No to 478 has signs all over Prescott and a website that required, at minimum, donated labor that has value, too.
Rusing described the group’s approach as not responsible, for several reasons. She pointed out that impact fees are meant to address the actual impact of new construction in terms of water and sewer services, not as a tax to cover other services. Council hired a consultant to develop a fair fee structure, but has yet to raise the fees, which had been under a moratorium from 2007 to this year, when it learned that higher fees are needed. Developers pass these fees on to homeowners. Impact fees are one-time, so the amount collected would depend on whether developers are moving forward with projects. That’s not a sustainable source of income to support fire and police departments, Rusing says.
Prop. 478 supporters note that the proposed sales-tax total after the increase would still be below that of other neighboring municipalities, such as Prescott Valley, which has a total 9.18% tax rate. If Prop. 478 passes, Prescott’s total sales tax rate would be 9.10%, roughly equal to 48 cents on every $50 spent. While some, including ex-politicians on radio shows, complain that it’s a “forever tax” because at the reduced rate it supports staffing costs beyond ten years, Rusing returns to the point that public-safety services are crucial. “We made a promise and a commitment to provide these services to the public, and it’s going to cost something,” Rusing said. “If we can’t fund our police and fire departments the way they should be, there’s going to be some consequences, and people aren’t going to like them.”
Prop. 478 proponents point to the City’s projection that 61% of tax revenue will be paid by tourists and residents of surrounding areas who don’t live in Prescott. In any case, if Prop. 478 fails, police and fire departments will have to wait another two years, till the next election cycle, for another window to increase funding.
Some residents oppose any tax and express the wish for Prescott to remain as it was 30 years ago, but the days of the city as a western Mayberry are long gone. Development continues apace, and as the population expands, demand for public services will continue to grow. So far the departments have managed despite the shortage of resources, but many concerned citizens are working to ensure that the public-safety departments remain effective and they can continue to help avert potential tragedies.
“I think it would be very demoralizing for our police and fire departments if Prop. 478 doesn’t pass, because it would show them that the community doesn’t support them,” Rusing said. “Departments in the Valley are already poaching them, and I fear there would be a mass exodus.”
