A Short Tutorial: How to Find Edgewood Tax Information

Don’t be taken in by the incorrect interpretations of tax information floating around on social media. What ought to be of concern to all Edgewood voters is that some of those spreading wrong information are former town officials who ought to know better. The person who shared this PDF with me has given permission to post to the blog: 

• Note that the information in the file is based on public information available through the Taxation and Revenue New Mexico website. 
• Local governments get their authority to tax from the state. 
• Edgewood officials don’t get to make things up and pull concepts out of the air to suit our own ideas. 
• As former Mayor Bob Stearley pointed out at a recent meeting, this is simple arithmetic. 
• However, to get to the correct answer you have to start out from the right place; this slideshow will walk you through how to do the calculations yourself.
• NB: The reports listed at the T&R website are always 2 months behind. The calculations are based on the total sales but not the sales plus tax collected on them. The taxes collected are based on the sales, and then distributed with portions of those distributions being allocated for certain purposes.

64 Days and Counting…

 …Because restoring the Fire/EMS JPA is of paramount importance, yet tonight’s agenda is loaded up with frivolous elements. It’s past time to start working on the budget. But instead, the Commission continues to waste time re-inventing the wheel on a myriad of issues, presuming to set themselves up as moral arbiters for the citizenry, and sending the staff on an endless series of futile inquiries. 

It’s one thing to send credulous underclassmen out to “hunt snipe” on a moonless night: However, experienced professionals can’t be expected to cater to the Commissioners’ big egos forever.  

• Do these Commissioners not understand the fundamental reasons why previous inquiries into a 24/7 medical facility have not come to fruition? Consider this: It’s not for lack of trying by other, highly qualified people. The fundamental realities of income, tax base, and population have not changed substantially since it was looked at in the past. 
• How many times to we have to revisit the real versus artificial turf question? Has it not occurred anyone to look back at the minutes of meetings when the first field was built?  
• Why is the Church Road paving project still not finished despite decades of appearing on the ICIP, and the fact that is the entry point from the east to one of the town’s best income generators?  Perhaps look at the town’s history of political instability.
• Why did previous town governments not jump right in to buy chip-seal equipment, and why has the town not met projections after this one did take on the project? Could it be that previous town governments were better grounded in reality and looked at the short window dictated by our weather, staff turnover rates in the road department, and had conducted more than one cost/benefit analysis on future maintenance? 
• Does the town need a separate Public Information Officer? The Commissioners need to stop wasting time and money on lawsuits, pursuit of vanity projects which the tax base cannot support, and let senior staff actually do the jobs for which they were hired. If that were to happen, release of official information would be more routine and less time consuming.  

For owners of property with an agricultural tax valuation:

The Santa Fe County Assessor's staff will be conducting outreach meetings at various locations in coming days and weeks. There will be a meeting at the Edgewood Senior Center located at 117 Quail Trail on February 26, 2015 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. A copy of the flyer with additional information and locations is available on Drive. 

Council meeting of September 3, 2014

"If you're not seated at the table you're liable to find yourself on the menu!"

Please note that there will be two principal agenda items for this meeting, and that it will begin at 6:00 pm instead of the usual 6:30 pm. This is being done in order to facilitate the start-up of building a town hall on Section 16.  The two items which will be dealt with are:

• Exploration of funding alternatives for a town hall and; 
• A second attempt an regularizing town boundaries through an infill annexation.  Town residents living in the areas targeted for annexation should be aware that this is not considered a voluntary annexation; rather it is a exercise of the town's police powers for ensuring the health, safety and welfare of citizens. 

What area residents might want to consider with regard to the first item of funding a town hall is that the town council has the power to impose a small amount of property tax which could be used to help pay for the proposed facility without seeking voter approval.  Also, any funding alternative will certainly include borrowing against future GRT revenues for the project.  That, in turn, would mean less money spent elsewhere if the town's GRT income continues to stagnate.

While the mayor has indicated in the past that he objects to citing health safety and welfare by the town when placing conditions on such things as road design standards, it appears that he and the council have no qualms about exercising that power to annex land without the consent of property owners. Any property owners who are annexed in this manner will be assessed property taxes pursuant to the recently approved General Obligation Bonds for building an animal shelter and for the paving of Rainbow, Horton, and Walker roads.  In addition, when the land is annexed, the property owners who are affected need to be aware that their land will have a zone category assigned at some point.  The town has a variety of different residential and commercial zone categories and the differences among them can be significant. 

The town's first attempt at an infill annexation was rejected by former Governor Bill Richardson's Boundary Commission, and that decision was upheld by a panel of New Mexico's Supreme Court.  I expect the proposed infill will be changed somewhat from the first attempt in order to address issues cited in the court's decision, and that it will also include more land. 

The last time the possibility of annexing South Mountain Elementary was raised before the council, the indication at that time was that there are no plans to do so.  However, if the land were to be annexed, Edgewood would then have an elementary school located inside town limits.  And, doing so makes sense in another way because the school is very close to the geographic center of the town.   

Property Valuation Protests and SFC Zone Map

Attention Edgewood area residents:  Thursday April 24, 2014 is the last day you can protest your property valuation at the Edgewood office.  After that date you will have to travel to Santa Fe; the final deadline is April 30, 2014. 

Hours & Location:

• 4:00- 6:30 pm 
• Edgewood Senior Center, 114 Quail Trail
• Bring your 2014 Notice of Value and copies of any documentation you wish to use in consideration of a lower property value. 

Also, if you own land in Santa Fe County which lies outside of any municipal boundaries, the county is in the process of finalizing its Official Zoning Map for the new Sustainable Land Development Code.  It is important that landowners check to make sure that the zoning shown on the draft map is appropriate before the final adoption takes place.  The draft map and accompanying information is currently listed under "Hot Topics" at the SFC website.