Tax deal benefits rural area

After more than a year of talks, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has reached an agreement to pay property taxes and other levies associated with its ranch property in White Pine County.

Though it is exempt from such taxes, the authority agreed to pay $156,400 this year and an additional $45,000 annually in what amounts to a good-will gesture toward the cash-strapped rural county.

Since 2006, the authority has acquired seven ranches and more than 23,000 acres in White Pine County to support the agency's plan to tap groundwater across eastern Nevada.

All of the property is located in Spring Valley, which authority officials consider the "anchor basin" for the groundwater project.

Water authority board members signed off on the in-lieu payments last week, roughly 14 months after General Manager Pat Mulroy first floated the idea.

The White Pine County Commission is scheduled to consider the agreement today.

Dick Wimmer, deputy general manager for the water authority, said he would be surprised if the deal failed to go through.

"They want to be compensated for these things, and we're willing to do it. We're not asking for anything else," Wimmer said. "This is so they don't get harmed."

Just don't mistake an agreement on in-lieu payments as a county endorsement of the water authority's pipeline project.

County Commissioner RaLeene Makley, who served on the committee that negotiated the payments from the authority, said the county's stance against the water grab has not changed.

The agreement itself is very specific on that point, noting that by signing the document, the county and the authority "do not compromise or concede their respective positions on any other issue or in any other matter."

"I don't think we're going to have too many people disagree with this," Makley said of the agreement. "There are probably some people who think it (the payments) should be more, but taxes are what they are."

The initial payment of $156,400 includes $69,500 in property taxes that would have been assessed over the past three years and $76,900 in property transfer taxes that would have come due had a private entity bought the land instead. The remaining $10,000 is to cover any sales, use or privilege taxes the county might have collected from private farms or ranches on the property.

The authority has also agreed to make future payments of $10,000, plus whatever property taxes would have been owed, each year at the end of August.

Some county officials think the $10,000 figure should be more like $33,000, but Wimmer said the smaller number is based on the authority's current ranching operations in Spring Valley. "It wasn't taken out of thin air."

The agreement calls for the annual payments to increase if the authority buys more property or the assessed value goes up on the land it owns already.

White Pine County can certainly use the money. Since declaring a fiscal emergency in 2005, the county's finances have been under the control of the Nevada Department of Taxation.

The authority's initial payment of $156,400 represents just over 1 percent of the county's general fund budget of about $11.6 million.

It took two negotiating sessions -- one in May, the other early this month -- to hammer out the details of the in-lieu payment agreement. "These were very good discussions. They were very open, and they were very honest," Wimmer said.

The prospect of the authority buying up ranch land and taking it off the tax rolls has been "a real issue" with county residents for a long time, he said, but he thinks this agreement should put all that to rest.

"It just recognizes their concerns," Wimmer said. "It's fair, and it's the right thing to do."

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.