Flagstaff voters to decide sales tax hike for public safety

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(The Center Square) – For the third time since 2015, voters in Flagstaff will decide whether to raise the city’s sales tax.

Proposition 404 aims to raise the Northern Arizona city’s rate by 0.5%, moving it from 2.486% to 2.986%, which would put the total sales tax at 9.886% (from the current 9.386%). The goal of the Nov. 3 measure is to generate an additional $18.2 million per year in tax revenue over the next decade-and-a-half, with proceeds going toward fire and police operations.

The 2026 tax hike proposal comes two years after city voters approved Prop. 488, which upped the local rate from 2.281% (where it stood since 2019) to the current 2.486%. Before that, Flagstaff’s sales tax increased in 2015 (to 2.051%) and 2008 (to 1.721%).

While city officials did not return multiple requests for comment from The Center Square, the city’s website says the tax hike will fund 77 public safety positions, helping it add firefighters, paramedics, wildland fire management personnel, dispatchers and police officers.

What will the tax hike cover?

According to the proposed funding allocation provided online by the city, $15.5 million in funding would be spread across several public safety departments.

Chief among the additions is $4.4 million to hire 34 more police personnel, which includes everyone from officers to dispatchers and records technicians.

An additional $2.6 million is allocated for the city’s future Fire Station 7, which is proposed for the western flank of Flagstaff. It would be funded a $40 million bond measure, which is on this year's ballot as Prop. 405. The $2.6 million figure is budgeted to cover hiring six firefighters, three battalion chiefs, engineers and captains, and all the equipment and uniforms they’ll need for the new station.

There’s also $1.8 million to hire personnel for one of the city’s firetrucks, with six firefighters and three engineers and captains on the budget.

Throw in $1.1 million apiece for fire station management, training, supplies and equipment and for airport operations (including three aircraft rescue firefighters, security and training) and you have the top line items that the city wants to add with the sales tax hike in 2026.

In total, the $15.5 million would allow Flagstaff to hire 77 people across the public safety departments it would cover, representing a 25% increase in staffing from the 311 full-time equivalent personnel in those departments.

Why now?

While the media relations officials from the city did not reply to The Center Square’s requests for comment, Katie Ratlief, executive director of the Common Sense Institute of Arizona, wonders if now is the right time for another tax hike.

Ratlief pointed out that Flagstaff’s existing sales tax rates have already paid dividends for the city’s coffers, with a 2.9% increase in tax dollars projected in the 2026-27 fiscal year budget ($32.4 million) versus where things stood in 2025-26 ($31.5 million).

“The city says it's to pay for additional public safety positions. That's firefighters, EMT’s, wildland fire management and police officers,” Ratlief told The Center Square. “But given the city's history of their total budget and the percentage of their budget that they spend on public safety, I think voters have a right to be skeptical and to ask for more information.”

Ratlief cited the fact that Flagstaff’s budget for fiscal year 2025-26 had roughly $81.2 million left over in the city’s general fund balance as a reason for skepticism over Prop. 404’s necessity.

She said she doesn't know if she's ever seen a city with a huge cash surplus asking voters to raise taxes on everything they buy.

Officials from the local firefighters union (Flagstaff Fire Fighters Local 1505) and law enforcement group (Flagstaff Law Enforcement Association) that have supported Prop. 404 did not return multiple requests for comment from The Center Square. But they did discuss Prop. 404 in greater detail earlier this year, telling city council members the time is right to support the city’s public safety apparatus.

“The reality is simple: Public safety cannot continue to do more with less, as we’ve done for many, many years,” Michael Oliver, president of the association, told the council in June, according to The Arizona Daily Sun. “Public safety professionals willingly carry the weight of trauma and responsibility because they believe in service. But belief alone cannot sustain an understaffed department forever.”