Summit County Councilmember Roger Armstrong and Councilmember Megan McKenna met with local health officials June 24. Armstrong said he’s “quite concerned” about the county health department’s budget.
He gave an update about how federal cuts will impact local health services at the June 25 council meeting.
“We're going to have to make some hard decisions about — Women, Infants and Children (WIC) may be eliminated. Behavioral health will likely be substantially impacted. Substance use disorders are likely to be fairly well maintained. We're going to have to take a very hard look at the budget,” Armstrong told his colleagues. “[Local health is] going to have to be right at the top of the list, in terms of the programs that we should be providing in Summit County.”
WIC is the federal government’s nutrition program for pregnant women and families with kids under five living in poverty. It’s funded federally but administered locally.
That, and the other services Armstrong mentioned, aren’t cheap. The Summit County Department of Health has a $10 million budget.
Roughly half the money comes from federal grants, and under the current draft of the Trump administration’s “big, beautiful bill” in the Senate, the local health department expects to lose millions.
Armstrong said that’s “a lot to fill” with money from the overall Summit County budget, which is likely to be between $90 and $100 million.
“I don't think there's going to be a lot of rescues coming in, because programs all over the country are going to be impacted: the state level, the local level, at the federal level,” he said. “I think we're going to have probably one of our more challenging budget sessions coming up this year.”
That’s even with help from local taxes, Armstrong said.
The Utah Legislature gave governments like Summit County more flexibility with how they can use sales taxes on hotel rooms and short-term rentals this year.
And on July 1, the emergency services sales tax voters approved in the last election will kick in. It’s expected to bring in about $7 million this calendar year and at least $14 million every year thereafter.
Summit County’s fiscal year is the same as the calendar year, so the council needs to pass a budget in December. Leaders usually have preliminary conversations until the fall, when discussions about the balance sheet happen weekly.
Earlier this month, Park City adopted a $98 million, relatively modest budget compared to recent years.
Similar to the county, city leaders expected to make local cuts because of changes at the federal level. But higher-than-expected winter sales tax revenue supported a cost-of-living pay increase for city employees.
Summit County and Park City Municipal are financial supporters of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
