48-2223. Tax levy for current expenses

A. The board of directors of a health service district, at the time of certifying the amount required for payment of principal and interest on bonds, may certify to the board of supervisors the amount necessary to maintain and operate the health service system of the district during the ensuing year, and to defray all other expenses incidental to the exercise of powers granted by this article, together with an estimate of the revenue which will be received from rentals and service charges. In that event, the board of supervisors, at the time of levying county taxes, shall levy and cause to be collected in the manner prescribed by law for county taxes, a tax on real property within the health service district based on the current assessment roll, sufficient to pay the amount certified, less the amount estimated to be received from rentals and service charges. The levy for operational purposes shall not exceed seventy-five cents per one hundred dollars of assessed valuation except for a district that provides for ambulance service or a combined medical clinic and ambulance service as prescribed by section 48-2209.

B. The board of directors of a health service district may certify to the board of supervisors an amount to levy on all taxable property within the district for the purpose of funding the operation and maintenance of ambulance service or combined medical clinic and ambulance service that is owned or operated by the district or to pay the cost of an ambulance service contract entered into pursuant to section 48-2209. The amount of the levy necessary for the operation and maintenance of the ambulance service, if any, shall be separately stated in the levy. Before the initial imposition of such a tax, a majority of the qualified electors voting in an election conducted in the same manner provided in section 48-2213 must approve the initial imposition. The election must be held on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November as prescribed by section 16-204, subsection B, paragraph 1, subdivision (d). The levy under this subsection for operation of ambulance service pursuant to this subsection shall not exceed seventy-five cents per one hundred dollars of assessed valuation, or one hundred thousand dollars, whichever is less. The one hundred thousand dollar limit in this subsection shall be adjusted annually from a 1991 base year according to the health services component of the metropolitan Phoenix consumer price index published by the bureau of business and economic research, college of business administration, Arizona state university or its successor.

C. The tax, when collected, shall be paid into the county treasury to the credit of the operating fund of the district, and the board of directors may order expenditure of the fund for the purposes for which levied. Payments from the operating fund shall be made upon claims allowed by the board of directors prepared, presented and audited in the same manner as claims against the county.

D. Not less than twenty nor more than thirty days prior to making the certification to the board of supervisors provided by subsections A and B of this section, the board of directors shall publish in a newspaper of general circulation in the district an itemized statement of the amounts proposed to be certified, and the statement shall contain notice of a meeting to be held by the board of directors prior to the time for the certification. At that meeting, any owner of real property within the district may appear and present objections to any item of the amount proposed to be certified.

E. If a district lies in more than one county the amount necessary to maintain and operate the health service system of the district during the ensuing year shall be apportioned and the tax levied and collected in the same manner as established in section 48-2220, subsection E.