Groundwater district manager slams commissioners court for raising taxes 

MARFA — A heated discussion broke out at Wednesday morning’s meeting of the Presidio County Commissioners Court over this year’s tax rate, which represents an increase of about a penny per $100 of property valuation. Trey Gerfers, general manager of the Presidio County Underground Water Conservation District (PCUWCD), took the commissioners to task for the increase — which he felt represented a deliberately broken promise between his board and the commissioners court. 

For 23 years, the PCUWCD’s operational costs came from the county budget. During the budget cycles of 2021 and 2022, County Attorney Rod Ponton raised concerns about this arrangement, forcing the PCUWCD to hold an election in the spring of 2023 to officially earn taxing entity status. 

According to Ponton, when voters approved the creation of the PCUWCD in 1999, they created a governing body with the power to become a taxing entity but did not properly set up that body to actually levy taxes. Ponton said that he had found an attorney general’s ruling that would indicate it was technically illegal for the county to give money to an entity that could raise its own cash. 

Gerfers and his board members were frustrated by the fact that Ponton only seemed to bring up the issue during the budget cycle, which they felt derailed crucial conversations. “We were operating better than we’d ever operated,” Gerfers said of his board before the 2023 election. “It was only the county through the county attorney that decided to cut the groundwater district loose.” 

Throughout the end of 2022 and spring of 2023, Gerfers pounded the pavement to educate voters about the importance of making a PCUWCD a taxing entity. To make the election an easier sell, Gerfers entered into an agreement with the then-commissioners court that the county would lower its tax rates in 2024 to make room for the PCUWCD to operate under an adequate budget — without raising the overall tax rate for property owners. 

During this year’s property tax deliberation, the tax swap agreement with the PCUWCD was all but forgotten, and the county ended up raising their rates by about a cent per $100 of valuation.

Gerfers was upset with officials for reneging on their promise, and said that his board had “run into all kinds of costs we had not anticipated” that were part and parcel of becoming a taxing entity for the first time. “We have sought to be as conservative as possible,” he said. “Are y’all going to honor your agreement or not? I just don’t know how voters are supposed to trust y’all if you’re not going to.”

Precinct 4 Commissioner David Beebe didn’t mince words. “Yes, we’ll take the blame,” he said. 

Beebe — with backup from County Auditor Alicia Sanchez — said that it was too late to renegotiate the tax rates and budget, due to a strict schedule of deadlines set by the state. He said it was a cautionary tale, “Commissioners courts are not committed to obligate future commissioners courts, and this is exactly why.”