Household budgets should brace for another bill in unincorporated Salt Lake County -- one that could pluck an extra $174 a year from people's pocketbooks.

It's not for garbage collection or electricity. It's not for water or cable TV.

It's a bill for police protection that could arrive early next year in the mailboxes of 170,000 people who live in unincorporated burbs such as Magna, Millcreek and Kearns.

County leaders gave preliminary approval Monday to a law-enforcement fee that would generate nearly $12.8 million annually for the new Unified Police Department.

While most owners of single-family homes would pay $174 a year for police protection, that fee would increase slightly for owners of an apartment ($234).

Why the difference? Because the fees are based on who generates more police calls -- and apartments produce more law-enforcement traffic than single-family homes.

The same is true for businesses, where a convenience store with gas pumps would pay more than a church ($4,032 compared with $948), but less than a retail superstore such as Walmart ($71,412). The county would tack on an extra sum based on how many employees those businesses have -- the fee rising with the number of workers to reflect the cost of traffic enforcement.

The unincorporated county's two businesses with more than 1,000 employees, Kennecott and ATK, would pay a combined $1.4 million to offset their impact on public safety.

"[It] is the fairest way to allocate the cost of the service," said Mayor Peter Corroon, who serves on the county's law-enforcement district board that will set the fee. "It essentially places the cost where the calls of service are coming from."

The fee -- which the board will vote on in early January -- comes after a financially bruising year. Because of sagging sales taxes and dips in investment earnings, the county has dramatically downsized its 2010 budget.

The county's once-$801 million ledger will drop to nearly $659 million next year. Officials have trimmed wages, left more than 300 positions empty and scaled back services across the board, including closure of some recreation centers on Sundays.

But the County Council also chose to raise property taxes for the first time in nearly a decade -- a move that will cost constituents countywide about $20 more a year on an average $260,000 home.

Now, with the looming police fee, residents of unincorporated Salt Lake County face another expense. The first police-protection bills -- if the fee schedule is approved -- would reach residents as early as February. Subsequent bills would arrive quarterly.

What makes the timing particularly unfortunate politically is the apparent contradiction between the appearance of a brand-new fee and Sheriff Jim Winder's claim that the newly formed Unified Police Department would save taxpayers money.

The UPD is less expensive, Winder said. When the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office splinters its patrol division into a stand-alone police force next month, its spending will drop 6.1 percent.

"If it cost us $100 to serve the citizens of Salt Lake County last year, it would cost us $94 this year. That is a fact. UPD is cheaper," Winder said. "People will pay more out of their pocket, but it is a function of the economic times."

The county is suffering a cash crisis. While residents of the unincorporated county have been paying into the municipal-services fund for years to provide city-like services such as police patrols, the recession has devastated a leading revenue source: Sales taxes.

So the county now faces a multi-million dollar shortfall in that fund.

With the new police department forming, county leaders decided the best way to fill that gap was to create a dedicated revenue stream -- through fees -- for the UPD.

The move will not impact cities such as Holladay, Riverton and Bluffdale, which also are UPD members but fund the agency through their own budgets.

jstettler@sltrib.com