A mill-levy increase approved in May will hit Cortez property owners next week when they open their 2000 tax bills.

Last spring voters approved a 14-mill increase requested by the Cortez Sanitation District to fund a $10 million sewer plant, the first tax increase for the special district in 17 years.

County Assessor Bob Cruzan said the new tax bills will reflect the increase, raising total property taxes levied for district residents by 12 percent.

In 1999, the total mill levy, including taxes from other entities such as the school district, for residents of the sanitation district was 65.94 mills; for 2000 it will be 74.409, he said.

As an example, the owner of a house with an assessed valuation of $50,000 will pay an extra $41 this year, or $362.37 total in taxes. The owner of a house worth $150,000 would pay $123 more, with a tax bill increasing from $963.47 to $1,087.12.

Cruzan pointed out that voter denial in November of a mill-levy-continuation request by the Re-1 school district will offer some tax relief.

"With that gone, it offsets the increase somewhat," he said.

The new sewer plant, set for construction south of Cortez, will be able to handle future development and the waste associated with it. The current system is almost at capacity, with only some 200 available sewer taps remaining.

General obligation bonds, backed by the tax increase, are issued to finance the project. Under the terms approved by voters, the new mill levy will bring in an additional $871,846 per year to the special district. The maximum repaid cannot exceed $17.3 million. The tax will sunset in 20 years.

The new facility, approved by a 416-to-190 vote, will consolidate three separate plants into a single operation. A modern system will be constructed at the current, soon-to-be-dismantled southwest plant, located off South Broadway. The project is expected to take two to three years to complete.

In other county news:

• The county assessor’s office is in the process of re-evaluating all assessments. Market data for agricultural lands will also be updated, Cruzan said.

• The well-worn, tongue-in-cheek joke by the county commissioners to "look that up on our web site" will soon ring true. An actual county web site is expected to be on-line within a few months. It will offer property-tax data among other information of interest to the public.

"I guess it’s not a fad after all," quipped Commissioner Gene Story earlier this year after approving an $800,000 computer upgrade for the county that will include the new Internet site.

By Gail Binkly
Journal Managing Editor

A new $4,000 fee for any Cortez Sanitation District customer whose sewer service is cut off twice within five years is necessary to discourage repeat offenders, a member of the district’s board said Thursday.

"We’re trying to get them to stop that (non-payment), because it’s a bunch of trouble to go out and disconnect their sewer," said Bob Diederich, one of the board’s five members.

The district board adopted the fee on a 5-0 vote at its November meeting and announced it recently in a newsletter mailed to its customers.

"If any District customer has their service disconnected for non-payment twice in a five-year period, that customer will be required to pay a Plant Investment Fee in addition to all past-due amounts and penalties," the newsletter stated. "These fees must be paid before any service will be restored. Currently, a Plant Investment Fee is $4,000."

On Friday, Cortez City Council member Jim Herrick said Friday that he had not heard about the fee previously and the council has not discussed the issue.

But, he added, "That sounds absurd to me. I can see there needs to be a penalty, but $4,000 seems absurdly high."

Sanitation-district customers whose service is disconnected already must pay a $500 fee to have it restored, as district employees physically come to the home and disconnect the sewer line, Diederich said. The $4,000 fee would be charged on top of that.

Diederich said $4,000 is the amount charged for a new sewer tap. "We just set it the same as though you were coming in with a new tap," he said.

He said the sanitation district rarely has problems with financially struggling people having their service disconnected. "Amazingly, it’s not the down-and-out," he said.

Instead, Diederich said, there are a handful of customers, some residential, some commercial, who repeatedly do not pay their bills on time and have their service disconnected — despite the $500 charge for reconnection.

"We give them all kinds of warnings before we do this," he said. "It can go on for upwards of six to nine months, with numerous warnings."

He said members of the district board were compassionate and would probably work with any genuinely poor persons who might be liable for the fee.

Bill Smith, manager of the sanitation district, did not return repeated phone calls Thursday and Friday.

Colorado law regarding metropolitan sewage districts states that, "Reasonable penalties may be fixed for any delinquencies, including. . . interest on delinquent service charges from any date due at a rate of not exceeding one percent per month, or fraction thereof, reasonable attorneys’ fees, and other costs of collection."

Cortez City Manager Hal Shepherd said Thursday that, in his years working as a city manager in Ohio, he had never heard of a fee as hefty as $4,000 for having sewer service restored.

When a Cortez resident’s sanitation service is disconnected, Shepherd said, the sanitation district immediately notifies the city, which shuts off water service to the home.

"Otherwise we will flood their house," he said.

After that, the Montezuma County Health Department may step into the situation, he said. "You can’t live in a dwelling very long without water and sewer."

There is no fee for the resident’s water service to be reconnected if it was shut off because of the sanitation district, he said. Otherwise, the water-reconnection fee is $10.

In its recent newsletter, the sanitation district announced two other changes to its rules:

• The bill due date has been changed.

The sanitation district bills its customers quarterly. In the past, they were due within approximately 90 days. Bills sent the first week of January, for example, were not due until the end of March. Now, bills are due 30 days earlier. Bills mailed in January are due at the end of February.

If bills are not paid on time, there is a late fee of $6.