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BERNALILLO — The Sandoval County Commission is required to hold a public hearing on the low-income property tax credit, also known as a rebate, ordinance every two years.
That hearing was held at the Jan. 29 county commission meeting.
“The statute was adopted in 1994. I don’t know if that was intended to make everyone have a hearing to start with, but even if you expressed no interest in the past, every two years you have to do this. The statute has unusual notice requirements that go beyond the Open Meetings Act. Generally, things have to be published on agenda 72 hours in advance. For this, we have to publish newspaper ads, we have to run ads on radio,” county attorney Michael Eshleman said.
Earlier that day, Rep. Kathleen Cates introduced House Bill 142, which would abolish the requirement to hold the public hearing every two years. The credit, or rather rebate, could instead be adopted by county ordinance if HB 142 comes to pass.
Eshleman said very few counties have actually adopted the ordinance in the past.
“The downside for the county is what commission would give to citizens, TRD (tax and revenue) would then take away from the commission, so the full cost of it would be deducted from our revenues. That’s why most counties have not adopted this,” he said.
He recommended the commission not take any action on the matter.
“We’ll consider that notice discussed,” Chairman Mike Meek said.
