| Sherwood Forest Estates Fire District 450 Little John Road, Williams, AZ 86046-8579 Phone: (928)635-9837 Fax:(928)635-9618 Email: sherwoodfire@qwestoffice.net |
To the Property Owners of the Sherwood Forest Estates Fire District,
We are writing to advise you of an error earlier this spring when the Sherwood Forest Estates Fire District (SFEFD) set the Fire District’s Fiscal Year (FY) funding request to Coconino County for this year’s upcoming property tax billing cycle. This error has affected every property in both the Mountain Rose Ranch Estates and the Sherwood Forest Estates subdivisions to varying degrees. In admittedly vary basic terms your tax contribution to the SFEFD for this fiscal year, which comprises only about 30% of your total property tax bill, was increased by about 18 cents on the dollar.
The SFEFD funding request error increased the tax mill rate from our historical 2.88 to 3.25 which resulted in an approximate overage of $17,000 in total revenues collected. Please note that this most inadvertent error only impacted the annual tax revenue contribution as generated by this specific fire district fund, identified on your tax billing as Jurisdiction 11249 FD SHERWOOD FOREST EST.
To correct this error the Fire Board directed the Fire Chief to freeze $17,000 out of this FY’s budget. Next, to provide the corrective reduction (the ‘pay back’ for the overage you paid), the Fire Department’s budget request for next FY’s will be based at the 2.88 mill rate AND the funding request will be further reduced by $17,000. Finally the $17,000 now frozen will rollover to backfill next FY’s funding reduction/corrective action, thereby leveling out the budget. Once again the funding of our SFEFD’s vital public safety missions will be determined and guided by our self-imposed 2.88 mill rate limitation. This action will return balance to our historical budgeting requests as generally practical and barring unforeseen significant or unusual circumstances.
Please note that the SFEFD remains as one of the very few fire districts historically charging less than the maximum tax rate permitted by law.
Respectfully,
Bruce Speirs, Chairman
Susan Hamilton, Secretary / Treasurer