City councilmembers shared some budget priorities at their January strategic retreat, and on Tuesday, April 29, they discussed the price tag each of those priorities may carry.
For fiscal year 2026, the total budget across all the city’s funds will be $86.8 million if the draft is adopted later this summer.
That includes a $17.9 million general fund, which pays for city government, planning and engineering, road maintenance, law enforcement and more.
Heber uses a zero-based budget. City manager Matt Brower explained the system ensures departments take a more careful look at what they need.
“What that means is, we ask each department to start with zero and build their budget up based upon their projected next year’s needs,” he said. “This is a little bit different than what most governments use – they use what’s called incremental budgeting, which will take the current year budget and simply increase it by two, three, or 5% and call it good and move on.”
A large slice of the budget goes to the police department – around 40% of the general fund, or $6.9 million.
City staff also spent some time discussing how to spend next year’s TAP tax revenue – that’s the trails, arts and parks sales tax voters approved back in 2022.
For fiscal year 2026, Heber plans to spend around $1.8 million on arts and parks projects, including expanding Muirfield Park, working with the Wasatch Trails Foundation to maintain singletrack trails and designing improvements to City Park on Main Street.
Brower said formalizing the City Park design, based on concepts created by consultant Roger Brooks, will make Heber a competitive applicant for grants to fund construction.
He said there will be plenty of time for public feedback on the designs, which could include amenities like an ice ribbon, outdoor dining and pop-up vendors for an estimated cost of $23 million.
“The process you would go through is to vet the Roger Brooks recommendations, and maybe leave them in, maybe take a few out, but that public process would help inform you as to what ultimately happens,” he said.
Councilmember Aaron Cheatwood said he wanted to reassure locals who might be worried the city already OK’d every aspect of Brooks’ ambitious design.
“That’s sadly one of those things that’s, like, so [much] misinformation in the public right now – that there’s so many loud individuals saying we are designing the entire thing, all the stuff, we’re not taking any input,” he said. “And I don’t know how better to combat it, but I’m glad to have the answer.”
The budget also includes $38 million worth of capital improvement projects, basically infrastructure construction plans for the next year. Many of the projects are described as “developer reimbursements.”
City engineer Russ Funk said that category is for when Heber requires, for example, a bigger road than a developer planned – the city must pay the difference in cost using impact fees.
There will be a public hearing in June before the council votes to approve the fiscal year 2026 budget.
