Some Salt Lake Valley residents could see a slight ease to their property taxes this year.
The Salt Lake County Council approved this year’s certified tax rates on Tuesday — which determine how much property tax revenue goes to the county’s general fund, health department and flood control department.
The aggregate tax rate decreased from last year’s rate of 0.1297% to 0.1253%, as calculated by the county auditor. That rate will remain through June 2026.
The change is to account for inflation, since the County Council did not move to raise property taxes during the November budget process, Deputy Mayor of Finance and Administration Darrin Casper said.
Why the drop? Utah’s property tax system requires certified rates to account for inflation year over year, so that taxing entities don’t experience a premeditated windfall when housing prices are expected go up, Casper added.
Certified tax rates ensure that despite inflation, Salt Lake County receives the same amount of property tax revenue as the previous year, Casper said. Any boost in revenue otherwise is through new growth — like with any additional home developments built this year.
New growth added $3.76 million to the county’s tax revenues last year, an increase of about 1.7%, according to a presentation during Tuesday’s County Council meeting. But with new growth comes a bigger population and more demand on county services, like the jail, Casper added.
County financial officials had projected an increase of about 1.8% through new growth, or about $150,000 more than what was actually recorded. They aim to predict revenues within a 1.5% margin, so the 0.1% shortfall will be relatively easy for the county to absorb with other variances in the budget, such as employee turnover, said Rod Kitchens, county director of budget and planning.
“That is a superb job of forecasting revenues,” Casper said. “That’s a very strong growth year. That means we had a lot of economic activity.”
How your property tax bill could change
The certified tax rate will result in a mostly neutral outcome for residents, but some county residents will see different rates on their property tax bill, depending on where they live, Kitchens added.
For example, residents of Salt Lake City and Murray won’t have a county library tax added into their overall property tax rate, since those municipalities have their own library systems.
The County Council did eliminate the municipal services tort liability levy during Tuesday’s hearing, which is technically a tax decrease, Casper said. The tax provides funds for tort claims against the county and would’ve cost taxpayers about $308,000.
The levy already has a balance of $2.7 million, and a claim was last reported in 2022, so the mayor determined it wasn’t necessary to keep adding to the fund. However, the levy’s elimination is so minor that most residents won’t notice the difference on their property tax bill, Casper added.
Correction • June 23, 2:20 p.m.: This story has been updated to correct that the most recent county municipal tort claim was reported in 2022.
