{"id":41878,"date":"2022-03-04T03:32:54","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T10:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-hospital-district-asking-voters-to-drop-sunset-on-sales-tax-and-reduce-mill-levy\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:03:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:03:57","slug":"montezuma-hospital-district-asking-voters-to-drop-sunset-on-sales-tax-and-reduce-mill-levy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-hospital-district-asking-voters-to-drop-sunset-on-sales-tax-and-reduce-mill-levy\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma Hospital District asking voters to drop sunset on sales tax and reduce mill levy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Southwest
Southwest Memorial Hospital offers a strong diabetes education program. (Photo by Southwest Health System)<\/span>Southwest Health System<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

In a special district election May 3, Referendum 6A from the Montezuma County Hospital District will ask voters to remove the sunset provision on a 0.04% sales tax in exchange for reducing the district mill levy by 25%.<\/p>\n

The sales tax, which amounts to 4 cents for every $10, was approved in 2015 and is set to sunset in 2030.<\/p>\n

The hospital district seeks voter permission to collect the .04% sales tax in perpetuity and use it to finance $23 million in upgrades and maintenance of Southwest Memorial Hospital.<\/p>\n

According to ballot language, the additional funding would 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

If the ballot measure is approved, the hospital would 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 campus improvement project in 2018 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

To reduce the burden on property taxes, if the measure passed, the district mill levy would be reduced by 25%, dropping it to 0.7455 mills from 0.994 mills.<\/p>\n

The mill levy reduction would be permanent. Over the next eight years, it would save property owners and estimated $1.1 million.<\/p>\n

According to the district, the ballot initiative \u201cspreads the funding of local health care across a wider spectrum, as all District residents as well as all people passing through the district are subject to the current sales tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hospital district encompasses all of Montezuma County.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtending the sales tax effectively provides revenues for local health care from county residents and tourists, not just from property owners,\u201d said Robert Dobry, secretary-treasurer for the hospital district. \u201cReducing the mill levy also reduces the tax burden for property owners.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the district plans an education campaign to inform the public of the ballot initiative and election, which will be by mail.<\/p>\n

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

initiative would allow financing for hospital upgrades and maintenance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,60,29,538,1160],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-southwest-memorial-hospital","tag-taxation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41878","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=41878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85131,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41878\/revisions\/85131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41878"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}