County shines light on property tax rate process

SANDOVAL COUNTY — The Sandoval County Commission deferred an item on property taxes Sept. 10 to the next meeting because the rates provided by the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration were incorrect.

County Manager Wayne Johnson expressed displeasure in the incorrect rates, the DFA and the county’s “unnecessary” involvement in the process before the meeting began.

“This has been one of my pet peeves since I was first elected because the way the system works is we send all our budgets in, but DFA takes a look at offer budgets and then sets the mill rates based on a lot of different things. They factor in yield control, and then the end of August they send us these rates,” he said.

He said the responsibility is placed on the counties to go to all of the taxing authorities like water districts, municipalities and schools. Once the DFA provides the “supposed to be correct” rates, the county has five days to approve them, he added.

Johnson expressed annoyance at the short time period because of that added step of getting all authorities in the county to respond in time.

“Five days is unreasonable to begin with,” he said.

Plus, he added, they have no inkling of when they will get that notice. In this case, the notice was given the week of Labor Day, when most staff were out of office, he said.

“They’re supposed to give this back to us. Then we have to approve within five days, which we did last week. They were, of course, wrong, but we still met our (requirement) within the statute,” he said.

The county called a special meeting when they got the notice, which is required by DFA. Upon receiving notice that the rates are wrong, DFA asked that the county call another special meeting. Johnson said he doesn’t believe they need to based on the county attorney’s legal advice.

He also asked why the county needs to be a link in the chain of the process in this way as well.

“We are in the position where we’re supposed to approve the rate. Well, we don’t know what the rate should be. We have no way to calculate the rates, and because we’re supposed to approve the rates, it implies that we cannot approve the rates, but legally, we can’t not approve the rates, which makes the question, since we don’t know how to set them, we don’t want to verify them, we don’t have the authority to set them or not set them... What are we doing in this loop with the commission anyway?” he said.

Johnson also claimed it creates confusion within the community on the county’s authority when it comes to the rates.

“All that we do, the county treasurer and the assessor, is we bill the taxpayer and we collect their money and then distribute them,” he said. “That’s the role that we play, but DFA has been in such disarray. They send us the rates, and they’re almost always wrong. It’s at least one or two of them are last year. Corrales this year again, Corrales was wrong. I don’t know which other ones were, but right now, we don’t even have tax certificate to set.”

He also said the counties are left with DFA’s “dirty work.”

The county does have authority over its own mill rates and the bond rates that have been approved by the voters.

“Our rates will adjust based on our operational budget, so our budget process does affect our rates. That is something we have control over, but everybody else’s we don’t have any control over, and for the average taxpayer, from the standpoint that if DFA gets it wrong and get wrong in the positive and you’re paying, which is a problem, but if they get it wrong in the negative, you can have somebody, like Corrales this year, have insufficient revenue for their debt services, and that’s something that can happen either,” Johnson explained.

Correction: DFA oversees all tax rates including city of Rio Rancho and the county's role is "purely ministerial", Johnson said. The Observer previously wrote that the county "oversees" other municipalities in this process except Rio Rancho.

DFA has not yet responded to request for comment.