What growth is worth
$559.96 a year, per new resident.
That is the exact state-shared revenue a thousand additional residents would bring City of Show Low. Exact, not estimated — every one of these four streams is apportioned by population under a formula that reproduces the published distribution for all 91 Arizona cities to the dollar.
$559.96
each additional resident, per year
$632.72
what the average resident brings today
11%
how much the average overstates it
Those first two numbers are not the same, and the difference is the whole point. A fiscal impact study almost always divides current revenue by current population and multiplies. That overstates the answer here by 11%, because these pools are fixed in dollars: a city that grows does not draw new money into Arizona, it takes a larger slice of a pool that stays the same size.
The effect is stronger the larger the city, because a city that is already a big share of the pool dilutes itself when it grows. Phoenix keeps about 70% of its average; a town of a few thousand keeps closer to 86%.
Annual state-shared revenue, by how much the town grows
+250 residents
$562.85 each · URS portion arrives in FY+2
+$140,713
+500 residents
$561.88 each · URS portion arrives in FY+2
+$280,938
+1,000 residents
$559.96 each · URS portion arrives in FY+2
+$559,958
+2,500 residents
$554.47 each · URS portion arrives in FY+2
+$1,386,163
What this town's growth costs its neighbours
Road funding and vehicle licence tax are split within the county, not the state. So when this town grows, the towns beside it receive less — not as a side effect anyone intended, but as the direct arithmetic of a fixed county pool divided by a larger population.
Winslow
−$46,975
Snowflake
−$36,788
Holbrook
−$26,656
Taylor
−$23,562
Pinetop-Lakeside
−$23,115
Every other Arizona city, combined
−$402,860
What this does not tell you
- —Local sales tax on new activity. The city's rate is public, but the spending base is an assumption we have not made.
- —Property tax from new assessed valuation. Needs the county assessor's roll and the city's levy, neither of which is loaded.
- —The cost of serving new residents and new development. This is the largest omission, and the one that most often turns a positive economic impact into a negative fiscal one.
- —One-time construction-period revenue such as permits and impact fees.