One way or the other, you're gonna pay.

That's not a line from a gangster movie, at least not one that we remember. Though maybe it should be.

Rather, it's an explanation of what will happen when a property tax replaces the police fee in unincorporated Salt Lake County.

Several years ago, the Great Recession caused sales tax revenues to plunge. That, in turn, blew a hole in the municipal services budget that pays for police in the unincorporated county. In response, the Salt Lake Valley Law Enforcement Service Area — the special service district for law enforcement in the unincorporated county — imposed a fee to help make up the difference.

That fee now is about $162 annually for homeowners. It is larger for commercial properties and for apartment complexes. There is justice in this, because some businesses create a greater need for police protection than single family homes do. Churches and other nonprofit organizations also pay the fee, which is fair. After all, they use police services, too.

But despite those virtues, taxpayers hated the fee. Many seemed to believe they were being charged twice for cops, though that wasn't true.

Enter the Legislature, which outlawed the fee. Now, officials are in the process of replacing it with a property tax. As a result, taxpayers who own a home valued at $233,200 actually would see a small reduction in their overall bill. When the old fee plus a previous property tax are compared to what the total new property tax would cost them, they would see an annual saving of about $16.

Owners of a $390,000 home would break even. Owners of a $500,000 home would see a $45 increase. Most businesses also would see increases.

To compensate for the new property tax, which will be levied by the special service district, the county will remove a property tax of the same size from the municipal services fund. The net result will be that public works in the unincorporated areas will be financed almost entirely by sales tax.

Because sales tax receipts tend to be move volatile than property tax receipts — sales tax collections move in tandem with the business cycle — there will be bigger swings in the public works budget.

County Councilman Jim Bradley says that's OK. You can postpone capital projects when revenues fall during an economic downtown more easily than you can lay off police officers.

True. But either way, you've gotta pay.