{"id":40795,"date":"2022-05-04T02:47:56","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T08:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/voters-agree-to-remove-sunset-on-montezuma-county-hospital-district-sales-tax\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:57:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:57:47","slug":"voters-agree-to-remove-sunset-on-montezuma-county-hospital-district-sales-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/voters-agree-to-remove-sunset-on-montezuma-county-hospital-district-sales-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Voters agree to remove sunset on Montezuma County Hospital District sales tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Southwest
Southwest Memorial Hospital recently completed a $32 million expansion.<\/span>Courtesy Nunn Construction<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Voters approved a tax referendum for the Montezuma County Hospital District in a special election Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Referendum 6A passed 55% to 45% with 1,960 voting yes and 1,623 voting no.<\/p>\n

The approved referendum removes a sunset provision on the district\u2019s 0.04% sales tax in exchange for reducing the property tax mill levy by 25% to 0.7445 mills from 0.994 mills. The tax was set to expire in 2030.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood news,\u201d said MCHD board member Joseph Dean Mathews when results were announced at Kelly McCabe law firm. \u201cThis is extremely important for the well-being of the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Out of 21,500 ballots sent out, 3,583 were returned, said designated MCHD election official Keenen Lovett.<\/p>\n

Voter turnout was just 16%.<\/p>\n

More than 200 ballots were dropped off Election Day, and just as many on Monday, he said.<\/p>\n

Mathews felt the voters appreciated the compromise of reducing property taxes in exchange for removing the tax sunset provision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt it was a fair approach, and reduces the burden on property owners,\u201d Mathews said.<\/p>\n

\"Montezuma
Montezuma County Hospital District Attorney Kelly McCabe, board member Dean Mathews and district owner representative Ralph Wegner wait for election results at McCabe's law office. The measure passed 55% to 45%. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Also on the ballot is the election of five incumbent board members, who were all uncontested. Board members Fred DeWitt, Brandon Johnson and Mathews will serve one-year terms. William Randall Thompson and Robert Dobry will serve three-year terms.<\/p>\n

According to ballot language, the additional funding will pay for construction of an Emergency Department, renovations of surgery facilities, replacement of hospital equipment and maintenance of the hospital campus.<\/p>\n

The funding also would pay for operation and use expenses for hospital facilities, including the new emergency department, the new patient wing, outpatient care facilities and the ambulance parking facility.<\/p>\n

With a permanent sales tax approved, the hospital plans restructure its $32 million bond debt to $55 million through the issue of revenue bonds backed by the sales tax.<\/p>\n

A $32 million bond funded a campus improvement project in 2018 that included the two-story, 25,000-square-foot medical office building, new 13-room hospital patient wing, upgraded birthing center, new front entrance and lobby, new EMS station and campus consolidation.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

exchange, the mill levy was reduced 25%; voter turnout was 16%<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,266,28,61,308,60,29,210,1160],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-local-elections","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-southwest-health-system","tag-taxation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84760,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40795\/revisions\/84760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40795"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}