Ronald Reagan was president, gas cost 95 cents a gallon and the price of the average home in the U.S. was $127,200 the last time St. George hiked its property taxes.
That was in 1987. A lot has changed over the decades.
Not only have gas and home prices quintupled, but St. George’s population has also ballooned from about 28,000 to just under 100,000 during the past 35 years.
Given inflation and the area’s rapid growth, St. George’s leaders say the city needs to catch up with the times to remain a safe and attractive place to live.
To that end, St. George leaders are proposing to hike property taxes to bolster public safety in the fast-growing city. Mayor Michele Randall says the city has an acute shortage of police officers, firefighters and other public safety resources.
“We are behind the eight ball right now and we can’t continue to fall further behind,” the mayor said. “We’ve put off property tax increases for 35 years and we can no longer kick that can down the road. It’s time we bite the bullet.”
If adopted by the City Council, that bite would cost the owner of an average $566,000 home about $5 a month, or $60 per year. The increase is part of a five-year plan to fund the addition of 46 police officers and 22 civilians to the police department and 34 firefighters and two civilians to the fire department, an effort the city has named “Safe St. George.” It also would fund the construction of four fire stations, 158 police and fire vehicles and increase compensation for public safety workers.
“There are cities up north that are starting their police officers at $32 an hour,” Randall said. “That’s $10 higher than we are. So we have to increase everybody’s pay to keep good solid officers and firefighters here.”
The price tag for Safe St. George is just under $90 million. The plan calls for property tax increases over five years that would generate just over $23 million toward that total, with the balance coming from impact fees, grants, bond issuances and city reserves.
To lessen the sticker shock, city officials are proposing to raise the property taxes in two or three increments. The first installment, which council members will consider at an Aug. 18 public hearing, would generate $4.6 million per year in additional revenue for public safety.
That will not be enough to pay for all the proposed public safety improvements but it will get the city closer to meeting its goal. If more is needed, the city council would revisit the issue with another truth-in-taxation hearing in two years and possibly a third later on.
“But that may not happen,” Councilwoman Dannielle Larkin said. “That’s why we decided to do it this way. If we can avoid the second and third installment, we will.”
If the economy tanks or the city’s revenue stream from other sources increases sufficiently, Larkin and other city officials say they would likely forgo any future property tax hikes. In the meantime, the city is asking for the bare minimum.
Due to limited resources, St. George Police Chief Kyle Whitehead said his department has been forced to become more reactive than proactive to deal with the increased demand for services spurred by the city’s growth.
Whiteheads said responsive times have been negatively impacted. Nonpriority calls that used to be handled the same day they were received now routinely take two or three days.
The department has also had to scale back on parking enforcement, abandoned car removal and bike patrols in high-density areas, according to the police chief. And when the department receives several priority calls on weekends, he and others often have to ask police in neighboring cities for assistance.
“Officially, as a department, we are staying neutral,” Whitehead said about the proposed tax hike. “We just need the resources. How the money comes, we’ll let the elected officials figure that out.”
St. George is one of nearly 90 Utah cities, and school, water and service districts that are currently proposing property tax increases. In asking for money, city officials have an unlikely ally – the Utah Taxpayer Association, the property tax watchdog which typically opposes tax hikes.
While not outright endorsing St. George’s proposal, Utah Taxpayers Association President Rusty Cannon said some sort of increase might be justified because the city has gone so long without raising property taxes.
“It seems like it is reasonable, well thought out and well-documented [proposal],” he said.
Cannon’s organization typically advises government entities to go through Truth-in-Taxation every five to eight years to recapture tax money lost due to inflation and other factors. Utah’s Truth-in-Taxation law requires property tax rates to automatically adjust when property values change so that the tax a government entity collects remains the same. The law requires government entities wanting to raise the tax to notify citizens and hold a public hearing.
St. George’s property taxes are among the lowest of Utah’s major cities. In 2021, the owner of an average primary home paid $232, $19.33 per month, to the city.
Cristina Pasenelli, a math teacher at St. George’s Dixie High School, doesn’t have a say on the City Council decision but knows how she would vote at the August meeting.
“If a St. George police officer is making $22 an hour and working a 40-hour week, that’s just over $45,000 a year before taxes,” she said. “You can’t afford to raise a family in St. George for $45,000. So if cops and the firefighters are asking for $5 extra a month from everybody … I think it’s a great idea.”
