The Arizona Western College District Governing Board has given preliminary approval to a budget for fiscal 2018. The budget would increase spending by just over four percent as well as the District's property tax rate.
Diana Doucette is Director of AWC Financial Services. She says the community has always been supportive of its community college, and she has faith it will understand and support the modest property tax hike proposed.
Doucette..."The college is asking the taxpayers to support education with a two percent property tax increase, which will equate to one dollar more per year on a hundred thousand dollar home than what they're currently paying"...:16
The preliminary budget sets the cap on expenditures for fiscal 2018 at just over 54 million 235 thousand dollars. Doucette says the property tax hike would bring in an extra 600 thousand dollars toward that total, at a time of continued cuts in state support. Final budget adoption is set for the May 15th meeting of the District Governing Board. A public hearing on the budget will come before the final vote.