Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board approves tax increase

 

Members of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District Board of Directors voted 5-0 Monday in favor of a 1 mill tax increase that will generate $4.3 million a year to be used solely for capital investment in equipment and infrastructure in the district’s nearly 100-year-old irrigation system.

“The goal of this mill increase is to move us away from being reactive to the next infrastructure break,” said Jason Casuga, MRGCD chief engineer. “We have had 10 major infrastructure breaks this irrigation season.”

The increase will affect all property owners within the Conservancy District’s boundaries, whether they are irrigators or not. It will cost the owner of a property assessed at $200,000 an additional $67 a year.

Money resulting from the increase, combined with grants and loans, would be used to pay for some of the $175 million in priority projects the MRGCD says need to be planned, designed, permitted and built...more