By Terri Harber, The Roswell Daily Record — Chaves County voters expressed their opposition to an increase in the gross revenue tax for local economic development by a wide margin.
The Local Economic Development Act (LED) local option tax of 0.125%, which would have been 12.5 cents for every $100, was defeated by 9,716 votes, or 68%. Only 4,501 voters, or 32%, were in favor of the tax, according to the New Mexico Secretary of State’s website, as of mid-morning Wednesday.
The Chaves County Commissioners narrowly approved presenting the tax question to the voters by a vote of 3-2 in August. One of the county elected officials who opposed the tax increase is Commissioner Dara Dana.
“We put it to the voters, and they said they were taxed enough,” Dana said Wednesday morning. “It would have hurt them. It would have hurt small businesses.”
Dana suggested that those who want to find money for economic development projects to benefit Chaves County look to grants and other means to assist businesses.
Will Cavin, who is currently transitioning back to the county commission from the Roswell City Council, said he has supported this economic development effort.
“Nobody likes taxes. I lived in Roswell all my life, but we’ve just been treading water,” Cavin explained. “I thought this would be able to show manufacturing companies that we are willing to invest in our county, they might also want to invest in our county.”
He also said the process of bringing these proposals to voters came with a very short timeline.
Next time, much more information and community input would be necessary to make this type of economic development a more viable idea to voters.
All Chaves County voters, including those who live within Roswell’s borders, had the county’s tax proposal on their ballots.
The Roswell City Council didn’t submit its request for an increase of 0.25%, which was 12.5 cents for every $100, to be placed on the 2026 General Election ballot because questions arose about whether the state’s procedures were followed leading up to the council vote.
Caption: People wait in line Tuesday morning to slide their completed ballots into the scanner at the Chaves County Administrative Center polling site.
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