Yavapai County is making a push to get voters to raise sales taxes by an additional quarter cent to help fund jail operations and eventual construction of a new jail in Prescott.
Yavapai County District 3 Supervisor Chip Davis, County Administrator Phil Bourdon and Sheriff Scott Mascher made their case to the Cottonwood City Council at its Aug. 5 meeting.
County representatives have been traveling around the county to make their case for the increase.
“The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office keeps a daily track of how many inmates there are,” Davis said. “We believe we’re going to go beyond jail capacity.”
The county currently houses inmates at the jail in Camp Verde.
The jail in Prescott was closed a few years ago as it was proving too expensive to continue operating, Mascher said.
The county established a special jail taxing district in 1999 and raised the sales tax by a quarter of a cent in order to help fund operations.
Mascher said that the motivation came from the actions of the federal government, which was threatening to take over the county’s jail system.
“The U.S. District Court held us liable for overcrowding,” Mascher said. “The federal government intervened and they were going to take over the jail system.”
Mascher argued that providing more funding through taxes to the jail system would help keep the federal government from having to possibly get involved again.
“We do not want the federal government coming in telling us what to do,” Mascher said.
The tax increase proposal will be on the November ballot.
To read the full story, see the Wednesday, Aug. 13, edition of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
