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League's 75th Anniversary: A Look at the Past
1972: Voters Approve League Initiative - Urban Revenue Sharing
Efforts to obtain a share of the income tax for cities and towns culminated in what appeared to be a successful legislative push in 1972, only to have final passage
come up two votes short in the House on the final night of session. The votes had been promised, but when the bill was considered a number of members had already
left - the vote took place at 2 a.m. The program was to provide 15% of the state income tax to cities and towns, which was estimated to yield $15 million in the
first year of sharing. The first year actually yielded slightly over $18 million.
But the cities and towns of Arizona decided to go to the voters directly for what the Legislature would not authorize, although there was not much time to do so.
The League Executive Committee met on May 24, 1972 to authorize an initiative, and the June 20, 1972 Legislative Bulletin announced the initiative campaign indicating
that 40,000 signatures were needed by July 7 to qualify the initiative for the ballot. The goal was to get twice that number to guard against invalid signatures.
The language of the initiative was by necessity much simpler than the legislation which had been defeated. Distribution in the failed legislation was based on a complicated
formula that included consideration of both population and revenue effort. That formula was too long and too complex for an initiative and the change was made to have
distribution based solely on population with the motto "put the money where the people are." The initiative also included preemption of local income taxes and local luxury
taxes and the voluntary state collection of local sales tax. Part of the impetus for both the legislation and the initiative was the luxury tax that the City of Phoenix
had instituted. Phoenix was collecting about $5 million a year from its luxury tax on cigarettes and liquor and stood to gain $6 million if the initiative was successful.
By contrast and to indicate the growth in this source of revenue sharing, the estimate for Phoenix for FY 2005-2006 was over $138 million.
The petition drive was on with petitions being sent to the city/town manager or clerk of every city and town along with an explanation sheet to help get the signatures.
Most communities participated, but the success of the initiative drive has to be credited to the City of Phoenix and then Mayor John Driggs. The Mayor raised funds from
private sources to hire professional petition signature gatherers and even in that incredibly short time frame helped the League make the signature requirement.
The Arizona Association of Counties was approached before the initiative campaign began to ask if they would like to join the cities in this effort. The legislation,
which was defeated by the Legislature, included authority for a county sales tax in unincorporated areas. Not only was this offer rebuffed but the counties actually
filed suit challenging the city initiative on the grounds of insufficient signatures and the validity of the petition signature checking process. Fortunately their
challenge was not successful.
The campaign was on for the 1972 November election and the cities rallied to support the initiative which would appear on the ballot as Proposition 200. The League
prepared individual news releases for each city and town to help them get local publicity supporting the proposition and worked with the major news outlets to get
favorable editorials. Fact sheets and materials in a question and answer format proved to be quite useful, as were the Prop 200 bumper stickers that began to appear
on municipal vehicles throughout the State. We even bought some TV time and featured mayors from five of the large cities in Maricopa County. League President Max Klass,
Mayor of Glendale, appeared prominently in the ads. A standard campaign speech was also circulated, and city and town elected officials were encouraged to use the speech
for presentations before local service clubs. Cities and towns included information on the initiative in water bill mailers, as well as other city/town publications.
There is a bound volume in the League library which chronicles the initiative effort and includes samples of campaign materials.
The initiative was successful, but not by a wide margin. The proposition passed with 53% of the vote, a margin of about 30,000 votes. |
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League of Arizona Cities and Towns
1820 W. Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007
Phone: 602-258-5786
Fax: 602-253-3874
http://www.azleague.org
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