Residents of Maricopa County could see their property taxes go up starting this fall.
The county plans to raise a total of about $20 million with the tax hike.
For the average home, valued at $100,000, that amounts to about $6 more on the property tax bill.
Fields Moseley with Maricopa County said various factors are behind this proposed increase: $31 million in cost shifts from the state to the county, a growing price tag for employee healthcare and pensions and a $19 million fall off in a sales tax that pays for jails.
“Those are things that are out of the supervisor’s control," said Fields. "They’ve mitigated it [those costs] as much as they can, but they still came up where they needed that $20 million to balance the budget.”
The county also set aside $23 million in this year's budget to cover the ongoing expenses associated with the class-action racial profiling lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The county raised the property tax rate just last year, but that was only by a few cents.
