Your claim has been rejected

A redacted dumpster fire … It’s gonna be a skinny fiscal year … And you can forge anything these days.

When Arizona voters approved Proposition 312 last year, the conservative Goldwater Institute declared, “Relief is finally on the way for Arizonans.”

That relief still hasn’t arrived.

At least, not financially.

The think tank, which takes credit for putting the measure on the ballot, pitched it as a way to reimburse property owners for the costs of cities’ failure to police homelessness.

Prop 312, which took effect this year, lets people request refunds on property taxes if they can show they lost money because their city or county ignored “nuisance laws” — things like sidewalk camping, panhandling or public drinking.

But of the 18 Prop 312 claims the Arizona Department of Revenue (ADOR) received through July, not one claimant has received a cent.

A Tucson claimant submitted this picture to help their $15,345 Prop 312 claim. Redacted courtesy of ADOR.

In total, claimants sought more than $128,000 in property tax reimbursements.

But it looks like the idea Goldwater sold was easier to sell than to deliver.

The claims range from $265 to $41,251.

We filed a public records request with ADOR for all claims for reimbursements under Prop 312, but the records we received were all heavily redacted.

Still, we can see that at least five of the 18 requestors are business entities. Of the municipalities hit with the claims, Tucson leads the pack with 10 claims. Phoenix has three and Gilbert, Glendale, Mesa, Yavapai County and Pima County each have one.

The claims not only differ in the compensation sought, but in the various ways people try to prove their city or county’s inaction cost them money.

A Camp Verde homeowner asked Yavapai County for $1,025 for the security cameras and lighting he’s installed because of “multiple occupants” living in travel trailers in an empty lot next to his property. He submitted Amazon receipts and work orders totaling that amount, and documentation of his public complaint to Yavapai County code enforcement officials.

A Laveen-area shopping plaza owner wants $26,307 for security guards, landscaping and trash removal. The business says it paid $62,670 for those things last year thanks to its city’s inaction. However, claimants can only request up to the amount they paid in primary property taxes last year.

The request includes 58 pages of receipts from patrol services and landscaping. But like a lot of the claims we read, ADOR sent it back as incomplete.¹

Most recently, ADOR told the claimant that the application is incomplete — it doesn’t include the required proof of correspondence with the subject jurisdiction.

Stuck in Limbo

In fact, 15 of the Prop 312 cases are sitting in administrative limbo for missing information.

Only three of the complaints were forwarded on to the responsible city or county, according to ADOR’s records. All three were rejected — in Phoenix, Pima County and Yavapai County.

Under Prop 312, cities and counties have 30 days to accept or deny a claim after they receive it from ADOR. But, unlike the claimants, cities don’t have to do much to explain their reasoning.

The Cave Creek homeowner included a cover letter to explain his Prop 312 claim, which Yavapai County rejected.

The standardized form municipalities have to fill out has a section for “reason(s) for rejection,” but Yavapai County kept it simple in the Cave Creek claim: “the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to reject this application for refund.”

Phoenix and Pima County’s attorneys provided some explanation.

Pima County said it wasn’t “maintaining a public nuisance” as Prop 312 requires, so it rejected a homeowner’s $989.54 claim to reimburse them for security cameras.

Phoenix’s claim was much more complicated. A north Phoenix business owner requested $41,251 — the highest amount of all the claims — and attached 136 pages of security guard logs and invoices as proof.

The claimant included more than a dozen emails between the business, Phoenix Police and the District 5 City Council office detailing the owners’ troubles since October 2019. They include rampant drug use, a continuously knocked-down retention wall and a dumpster fire.

ADOR even redacted the image of a dumpster fire, which is a pretty good metaphor for this whole situation.

In November 2019, the claimant told police officers, “The environment is much safer and more welcoming” after police added his property to their patrol area. But the emails picked back up in 2022 with “criminal activity,” especially on an adjacent apartment owned by a “slump (sic) lord” presiding over "unlivable conditions.”

But Phoenix rejected the claim because, among other things, it fails to demonstrate the city is following a policy or pattern of practice of the city not enforcing public nuisance laws.

Those who have their claims rejected still have some recourse — they can file a cause of action in superior court, where the municipality has to prove its actions were lawful.

Meanwhile, the Goldwater Institute — the driving force behind Prop 312 — ran sponsored ads encouraging property owners to submit claims and offering legal help with the application process.

But even though the claims haven’t been successful so far, it looks like Goldwater got exactly what it wanted.

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Grants Pass ruling, which had barred cities from displacing people if they have nowhere else to go. The added liability from Prop 312 prompted even progressive Arizona cities and towns to reinstate public camping bans.

“Prop 312 has already proven highly effective at incentivizing municipalities to crack down on lawlessness,” Goldwater wrote in December. “They don’t have any other choice.”

Tighten those belts: State agencies sent their budget requests to Gov. Katie Hobbs, who says they should prepare for a tough financial year, Reagan Priest reports for the Arizona Capitol Times. The big clouds on the horizon are federal funding cuts and dwindling pandemic money. Republican Sen. John Kavanagh says the lack of extra money could simplify life at the Legislature.

“It makes it easier,” Kavanagh said. “You can’t argue over nothing.”

More cops at schools: State officials are going to add more police to schools, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said at a press conference last Thursday, per the Republic’s Rob Schumacher. However, a group of students at Maryvale High School, where a student was fatally stabbed by another student last month, said they don’t want more police or metal detectors — they want mental health services and counselors, 12News’ Chase Golightly reports.

A motion against justice: Horne filed a motion arguing for a state Supreme Court justice to step away from an ongoing lawsuit Horne filed against dual language instruction, Gloria Rebecca Gomez reports for AZMirror. Horne said his tumultuous past with Bill Montgomery goes back nearly a decade to when the justice accused him of violating state campaign finance laws.

Weighing her options: Officials in four Western states are creating a public health alliance for vaccine recommendations, which they say is needed now that the Trump administration has politicized the CDC, KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young reports. Hobbs said she was also worried, but she didn’t commit to joining the alliance.

It’s really for everybody: Shockingly, the head of a corporation who threatened to take his business elsewhere unless he got a huge chunk of public money from state officials is now saying it’s actually going to benefit everybody else, too. Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall said the $500 million deal to keep the baseball team’s stadium in downtown Phoenix will help all the nearby businesses, KTAR’s Kevin Stone reports.

We’re a business near downtown, and we received no benefit from the handout to the Diamondbacks. Help us out by upgrading to a paid subscription today. Pretty please.

In other, other news

A judge ruled that a school in Nogales is unconstitutionally underfunded (Graham Krewinghaus / Nogales International) … Nearly 3,000 Glendale residents signed a petition to stop the city from relocating 100 peacocks and peahens that live near the main library (Richard Smith / Daily Independent) … Arizona is now facing its worst measles outbreak since 2016 (Morgan Fischer / Phoenix New Times) … Protesters called for APS to follow the clean energy goals it set five years ago (Wayne Schutsky / KJZZ) … And Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego called for action to help a woman in ICE custody who has been denied medical treatment for leukemia (Kate Gallego / Twitter).

Nicole and Hank joined AZFamily’s Dennis Welch on the “Politics Unplugged Podcast” this week to, well, mostly talk smack about politicians.

We gabbed about John Kavanagh’s new book, Andy Biggs’ run for governor and, as usual, we attempted to hijack the podcast and turn the questions on Dennis.

Meanwhile, Tucson Agenda’s Joe made an appearance on Arizona Public Media’s Press Room segment on Thursday, joining Arizona Public Media reporter Danyelle Khmara, Arizona Luminaria reporter Rafael Carranza, Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller, and host Steve Goldstein to talk about Project Blue updates, a complaint filed against Democratic state Sen. Analise Ortiz and concerns about the 2026 election.

And Joe also stopped by Bill Buckmaster’s radio show to interview Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos — who says you should call the cops if you see ICE agents in your neighborhood.

The state prison director acknowledged a slight oversight that led to David Cramer’s early release from prison — two decades early, Wayne Schutsky reports for KJZZ.

Last month, law enforcement re-arrested Cramer after he used a temporary ‘get out of jail free’ card. A TikTok post from June by Cramer’s daughter said she had got a judge to sign a release order and was going to pick up her father — except the documents were fraudulent.

We would love to say you can’t make this kind of thing up, but they seem to have done exactly that.

1. We previously said ADOR “didn’t approve it,” but technically, they just sent it back for more needed documentation. The department’s role is ministerial.