Summit County Council Member Roger Armstrong is still wrestling with a decision about whether the Council should set up a new transit tax—a choice the county has to make before the end of the month.
The new tax, amounting to .25 percent, was a topic this week as the Council of Governments (COG) met. East Side mayors were concerned that the new levy comes while the citizens are facing a number of proposed tax increases.
Armstrong told KPCW the mayors’ sentiment is very much in line with how the Council feels. The timing of this he said isn’t great. The community went through a tax process two years ago for two transit taxes and received overwhelming community support. Those in the Snyderville Basin he said are very concerned about transportation and transit because it’s getting tougher to move around. The county is starting to implement some new programs with those tax dollars and he believes the money will have some good effects to address the problems.
He said that the last state legislature gave the counties a carrot—and a dilemma—when it passed Senate Bill 136. The state is giving counties the ability to tax without a truth in taxation hearing or hold an election to pass a new transit tax. The carrot to counties is if they do it before June 30th the counties can keep all of the money it collects the first year. The second year about 60% will go to the state transit district and 40% to the municipalities. As the mayor of Kamas pointed out, the amount of money that Kamas would receive under the financial model that was presented is about 30% of his budget, so it’s a significant increase for municipalities and for some of the smaller cities in the county it’s extremely meaningful. But to have to make that decision by June 30th, he said, sucks.
The tax will not get charged on unprepared foods or gas. However, the mayors asked the county council to be careful because the amount of revenues that come from the tax will vary because it’s based on a formula where population and the source of the sales tax revenues is figured in. So if Summit County is the largest county participating, the county will end up shipping some of those taxes collected to other places and the county he said, doesn’t’ want to do that.
At this point, Armstrong hasn’t decided which way he’s leaning. If there aren’t enough large counties participating, he will reconsider. But if they’re all in, he said, it would be hard to turn down this kind of money to support transit and transportation projects which are critical to the county.
Armstrong said they’ve received word that Salt Lake County has decided to adopt the tax. A decision hasn’t come yet from two other large counties—Utah and Washington.
County Manager Tom Fisher has been meeting with city councils. Armstrong said they’re talking to many other local groups. They will likely do that right up to the time they make a decision next week.
