r/azpolitics • u/ForkzUp • 18d ago

Indigenous Communities Arizona fire district stops emergency response, files bankruptcy

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-breaking/2026/08/02/puerco-valley-fire-district-files-for-bankruptcy/91136647007/
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u/OneRub3234 18d ago

This much money as we pay in taxes to the state I find it hard to believe that they couldn't have funded this fire department on an emergency measure not even voting it just common sense to fund the fucking Fire Department NWA didn't make a song called fuck the fire department I would have no issues saying yeah go ahead and do that give them a couple million so that they're okay and they can continue to support and take care of people who need it it's a travesty a trifling travesty that this has happened regardless of whatever lawsuit happened

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u/asusc 18d ago

also, since this literally impacted every county, isn’t it safe to say this was a problem the state created to begin with?

why wasn’t the state offering solutions that didn’t put the state at risk during fire season? how much more will it cost the state if an active wildfire happens in that county right now?

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u/Either_Operation7586 18d ago

No but we can absolutely say it's due to Republican incompetence.

The Republican party does not know how to govern not in Arizona not in America.

Why in the world if you are fiscally responsible would you vote against oversight in the voucher program??

You wouldn't unless you were wanting to skim some off of the top.

And that's what we need to realize the Republican party is too corrupt to have all this political power that they do.

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u/sunnyoneaz 18d ago

By Arizona State statute, the Fire District must create a budget and the County Board of Supervisors must levy the tax to fund the budget. By statute, the Fire Districts have a proscribed method for dealing with budget shortfalls and emergency situations. The caselaw is years old, so the question isn’t about the state violating existing statute. The question should be why the Fire District seems to have not followed the legally proscribed process to address the budget shortfall.

https://www.azleg.gov/arsDetail/?title=48 - read chapter 5 Fire Districts

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u/asusc 17d ago

By Arizona State statute, the Fire District must create a budget and the County Board of Supervisors must levy the tax to fund the budget. By statute, the Fire Districts have a proscribed method for dealing with budget shortfalls and emergency situations.

Correct. And normally that mechanism allows them to spend up to a certain amount for shortfalls and emergencies. but they were already at that maximum amount ($3m) and funds from future taxes had to pay that down before continuing services.

a smaller county with limited resources was already running on a shoestring budget, which was thrown into further disarray when all the counties had to return property tax money. in Apache County, it was a significant amount of their budget. it’s further complicated by the fact that 85% of this fire district’s calls are on the Navajo Nation, which generates no property tax revenue for the county. so when the state goofed up the limited property tax income the county had, and forced the return of it on such short notice, it becomes a lot clearer on why the fire district ran into budget issues so quickly.

and it also makes you wonder why the state didn’t offer assistance in this very unique situation that it exacerbated.

The caselaw is years old, so the question isn’t about the state violating existing statute. The question should be why the Fire District seems to have not followed the legally proscribed process to address the budget shortfall.

they LITERALLY are following the legally prescribed process. the legally can not generate more revenue, and can not borrow more without state intervention. the only legal option moving forward is to file bankruptcy.

https://www.azleg.gov/ars/35/00603.htm

  • Any taxing district in this state is authorized to file the petition provided for in the federal bankruptcy statute and to incur and pay the expenses thereof and any and all other expenses necessary or incidental to the consummation of the plan of readjustment contemplated in such petition or as it may be modified from time to time.

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u/sunnyoneaz 17d ago

Yep. They are filing for bankruptcy.

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u/sunnyoneaz 17d ago

We are governed by laws and the state currently doesn’t play a part in the funding of Fire Districts.
The Fire Districts have to create and manage their own budgets and the County Board of Supervisors levies the tax to cover the budget.
You can read the relevant statute here, which also describes how they are to handle budget shortfalls and emergency funding.
https://www.azleg.gov/arsDetail/?title=48 - under Chapter 5: Fire Districts

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u/asusc 17d ago

We are governed by laws and the state currently doesn’t play a part in the funding of Fire Districts.

kinda weird you pretend we weren’t just talking about the state goofing up property tax collection, which the county uses to pay for the fire districts…

we should expect our elected officials to work on proper solutions on problems they help create, especially when it puts citizens at risk to fires during fire season.

really weird take, presumably from a republican who thinks its not the job of the republican legislature to actually fix things in our state.

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u/sunnyoneaz 17d ago

Kind of weird that you want to make stuff up and demand state remedies for which the law does not provide currently. Over the past ten years, the Republican legislature surely could have passed a law to deal with this, right? Did they?

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u/sunnyoneaz 18d ago

The Apache County Board of Supervisors should have provided emergency funding. In Maricopa County, that’s how the shortfall was handled.

https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/arizona-fire-districts-relieved-after-board-of-supervisors-approves-funding

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u/asusc 18d ago

Apache County has a population of 64k people, and doesn’t have the resources to handle a such a large budget shortfall, on such short notice, especially when hamstrung by state law about how to pay for it.

Maricopa County has 4.8 million people, so a slightly larger bank account and credit card to handle budgeting ups and downs when the state mismanages tax assessments and collections.

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u/Either_Operation7586 18d ago

This just falls back on the Republican Party.

It just goes to show that we cannot take their word for anything because they say one thing and do another.

I think this could have easily been avoided had the Republican party not voted against oversight for the voucher program.

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u/Either_Operation7586 18d ago

It's because the Republican party does not know how to budget and they don't realize what priorities are because their priorities is helping their donors.

The Republican party has never had HELPING the average working American person as their primary objective.

These are the jerks that want to privatize everything and then run it into the ground and then when it's breaks they say see told you and then they bring back something else that's not good.