This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
October can be a scary month. It's a time for Halloween and final property tax bills.
Utahns with the scariest property taxes this year are the 1,300 residents of the recently merged city of East Carbon-Sunnyside in Carbon County.
Overall taxes there on a $210,000 home are $2,196, the state's highest.
That total — a combination of city, county, school district, water district and other entity taxes — is triple the $714 bill on a similar home in the lowest-taxed area in the state, an unincorporated portion of Summit County within the Park City School District.
A Salt Lake Tribune analysis of data provided by the Utah Tax Commission shows that upset taxpayers apparently scared seven local governments into either eliminating or reducing proposed tax increases.
After required Truth in Taxation hearings — where residents may protest tax hikes — the cities of Elk Ridge, Garland, South Weber and West Point dropped proposed increases entirely. And Ogden, Woods Cross and the Wasatch County School District each decided to impose smaller-than-proposed hikes.
That's a sign that Utah's Truth in Taxation law, requiring a hearing before any property tax increase, is working, says Billy Hesterman, vice president of the business-backed Utah Taxpayers Association watchdog group.
"It's clear these seven entities listened to their constituents and made appropriate adjustments to what they could handle at this time," he said.
Hesterman said Utah's tax-increase requirements distinguish it from others.
"A lot of other states will do automatic increases to allow entities to keep up with inflation over time. We don't do that. We would say if you need to raise property taxes to keep up with inflation, that means you still need to have a conversation with your constituents about what you are doing with the money," he said.
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Tax hikes • This year, 52 local governments decided to raise property taxes. A complete list is online at sltrib.com.
That group includes 19 cities, 14 school districts, four counties, three fire districts, three mosquito-abatement districts, two cemetery districts and seven other service districts.
In comparison, 35 local governments raised property taxes last year, and 37 did the year before that.
The biggest tax hikes this year include: Sevier County, up $193 on a $210,000 home; Nebo School District, up $128; the Cedarview-Montwell Special Service District (in Roosevelt), up $104; Juab County School District, up $98; and Roy city, $90.
The biggest increase by percentage are: Cedarview-Montwell, 136.2 percent; Richmond Cemetery District, 133.9 percent; Paragonah, 75.8 percent; Scofield, 74.8 percent; and Midvale, 74.3 percent.
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Real increases? • Some of the biggest increases are coming where officials contend that they really didn't increase taxes at all, but the state Truth in Taxation law disagrees.
An example is Ogden, where city taxes increased by $83.85 on a $210,000 home, up 30.5 percent.
Ogden just retired a voter-approved general obligation bond. That would normally lower taxes as the debt disappears. But the northern Utah city proposed instead to keep taxes at previous levels — but ended up decreasing it a bit after hearings — to fund raises for police and firefighters.
"On a citizen's tax notice, they wouldn't notice a difference in the tax" portion charged by the city, Ogden comptroller Lisa Stout said earlier this year. "We just felt it was an opportunity to fund those wage increases without adding to the tax burden of citizens over what they felt in prior years."
"That's a tax increase," Hesterman said earlier, and state law agrees.
"The voters decided that for a certain amount of time, they would pay an extra amount in their taxes to cover a bond," he said. "That bond is now coming to an end and to say that no one is seeing a tax increase is just not correct."
Similarly, Salt Lake County was about to retire bonds that voters approved in 1995 to finance a jail expansion. County Mayor Ben McAdams proposed to keep collecting the same amount and spend it on criminal-justice system improvements, arguing it would not raise taxes that residents had been paying.
But, under state law definitions, that is a tax hike of $12.71 on a $210,000 home, up 4.9 percent.
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Same rate, higher tax • Clearfield officials said they have kept the same tax rate for the fifth straight year — making it sound as though taxes have not changed. That rate, multiplied by the value of the property, determines how much tax is paid.
However, state law requires local governments to adjust tax rates so they generate only the same revenue as the previous year, with a small allowance for growth. In a place like Clearfield where property values rose, it would require lowering tax rates to prevent a windfall in tax revenue.
Because Clearfield chose to keep rates the same, that was considered a tax increase and the city had to go through a Truth in Taxation hearing. It approved what is technically a tax hike of $15.71 on a $210,000 home, up 8.2 percent.
Somewhat similarly because of rising property values, Nebo School District in southern Utah County cut its tax rates — but that still resulted in a tax hike under state definitions. The hike there was $127.63 on a $210,000 home, up 13.5 percent. It was the second-highest increase in the state by dollar amount.
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Making ends meet • The highest increase by any local government in Utah was in Sevier County — up $193.35 on a $210,000 home, an increase of 50.2 percent.
County Commission Chairman Gordon Topham said it resulted in part because the county in recent years had been using up cash reserves to avoid tax increases. "We had a lot of good years with coal mining and oil" that created the reserves.
But at the same time the reserves depleted, coal mining and oil drilling became depressed — and the assessed values of their operations plummeted.
To make ends meet, he said his county proposed the large tax increase. Even with it, he said the county provided incentives for workers to retire early. "We are not replacing those who left," he said.
The effect of decreasing property values on tax rates may be why East Carbon-Sunnyside, another coal area, has the state's highest overall taxes now.
That distinction surprised city recorder Liz Holt. "We have pretty basic services here," she said.
But property values have been dropping. So the Truth in Taxation law — which adjusts tax rates so governments can generate the same revenue as the previous year — raised the tax rates there. That helped to push the area to the top of the list for taxes now charged on a $210,000 home.
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Highest taxes • Utah has more than 1,400 "tax areas" with differing rates because of crisscrossing boundaries of cities, counties, school districts, water districts, recreation districts and many more types of districts. Sometimes an individual city will have scores of separate tax areas.
While East Carbon-Sunnyside had the highest taxes among those 1,400 tax areas, portions of Ogden took the next six top places — with overall taxes varying there between $2,087 and $2,002 on a $210,000 home, depending on which water districts provided service in an area.
Rounding out the Top 10 list for highest overall taxes was a small slice of Salt Lake City in the Magna Water district, $1,955 on a $210,000 home; part of West Valley City in the Magna Water district, $1,948; and a part of Kearns in the Jordan School District, $1,916.
At the other end of the spectrum, Wayne County has five of the 10 lowest-taxed taxing areas, and Rich County has three.
Some examples: Unincorporated Wayne County, $747 on a $210,000 home; Torrey, $766; Unincorporated Rich County, $767; Loa, $771; Bicknell, $771; Lyman, $783; and Garden City-Pickleville, $820.
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Taxes in big cities • Although taxes can vary greatly within individual cities, major section of them often tend to have the same tax rates. The Tribune compared such typical areas for the state's 15 largest cities.
The most expensive typical areas in those large cities are: Ogden, $2,002 on a $210,000 home; West Valley City, $1,777; Salt Lake City, $1,733; Logan, $1,672; and Taylorsville, $1,588.
The lowest among the large cities are: Orem, $1,242 on a $210,000 home; St. George, $1,292; Murray, $1,298; Provo, $1,336; and Bountiful, $1,431.
Taxes among the middle group are: Layton, $1,572; South Jordan, $1,531; Draper, $1,523; West Jordan, $1,515; and Sandy, $1,500.
Property tax payments — large or small — are due Nov. 30.