Grand Canyon University Property Tax Cut Bill Fails
Download mp3 (1.44 MB)
Efforts to slash Grand Canyon University’s property taxes have failed for the third year in a row, and one of the groups that opposed the break says it could have opened a Pandora’s Box.
SB 1402 was defeated in the Arizona legislature Thursday. Had Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey eventually signed it, the private, for-profit university’s property taxes would have dropped from roughly 18 percent to 5 percent.
If the bill passed, it would have opened the door for other industries to seek a designation that’s rarely permitted, said Farrell Quinlan, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, which opposed the tax cut.
“The first one that comes to mind is hospitals,” Quinlan said. “Next year they would be down here, if the GCU bill passed, and they’d be making their case to be let into this class.”
Quinlan also said that if the bill had passed, GCU would pay half the percentage of homeowners, who would have to help make up the difference.
“More than 99 percent of universities in the country don’t pay property taxes, which shifts the burden of the services they receive on their campus to property owners in their neighborhood,” GCU President and CEO Brian Mueller wrote in a letter to faculty and staff. “The minute Grand Canyon started paying property taxes, we shifted the burden off our neighbors and onto the university.”
If GCU’s rate had dropped to five percent, the money it pays going forward would not decrease, school officials said. GCU is on track to pay $3.4 million this year and $4.4 million by 2017.
