Here’s a proposed tax increase that apparently would save taxpayers money.

Salt Lake County plans to jettison the much-despised police fee Dec. 31. This past year, unincorporated area residents paid that $162 fee, plus another $110.82 in property and sales taxes that had gone into their municipal services’ payment, to cover law-enforcement costs in their neighborhoods.

That’s $272.82 overall for the owner of a residence valued at $233,200.

Now, after being ordered by the Legislature to get rid of the unpopular fee, county officials have devised a plan to fund all of those law enforcement expenses through property taxes. Going this route, they calculate, that same homeowner would pay $256.65, a savings of $16.17.

The county’s proposal will be the subject of a public hearing at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Unified Police Department Building, 3365 S. 900 West, in South Salt Lake.

“What we have now is a good alternative,” said County Councilman Jim Bradley. “It’s a hold-harmless change. People in the unincorporated county will pay the same, even a little less.”

Besides helping most homeowners, Bradley contends the revised funding formula provides more long-term stability for financing law enforcement.

Property tax revenues are relatively stable from year to year, he noted, matching up neatly with law enforcement expenses that grow pretty consistently. That’s a much better approach than trying to cover those costs with fluctuating sales tax revenues, as the existing formula did.

The economic collapse in 2008 showed that. A 30 percent drop in sales taxes left the county desperately seeking a way to pay for police coverage. Their search led to the hated fee.

“In bad [financial] years, you can juggle public works projects. You can postpone building a sidewalk,” Bradley observed. “But you can’t delay protecting people.”

With this new formula, the county no longer would transfer $10.8 million in sales tax revenue from its municipal services fund to the Salt Lake Valley Law Enforcement Service Area (SLVLESA), which relays funds to the Unified Police Department for coverage in unincorporated areas.

The county would keep that sales tax revenue in the municipal services fund for use on public works projects. In return, the property tax levy that had funded those municipal services would shift to SLVLESA to pay for police coverage.

SLVLESA’s taxing authority on that $233,200 residence would jump from $0 to $256.65. On a similarly valued business, it would go from $0 to $466.63, the county figured.

But by cutting the police fee and the property tax that formerly went into the municipal fund, county officials determined most homeowners and many businesses would experience a little tax relief.

Not all would.

Owners of a $390,000 residence would be at the break-even point of this tax exchange, while people with a $500,000 home are projected to pay $45.24 more next year than this year.