A handful of residents in Upton, up Chalk Creek Road from Coalville near Wyoming, have been paying $5,000 each to maintain what is a public, paved county road.
After they alerted the Summit County Council last fall, staff gradually started reducing the $773,000 Chalk Creek Road maintenance budget to provide interim relief. Now they are poised to eliminate the tax entirely.
“I think it had maybe a ‘Rolls Royce’ level of maintenance before, and we're going to cut it back to make them more of a Cadillac or a Kia, Honda,” County Manager Shayne Scott told councilmembers Dec. 3.
The county will still plow and maintain the surface of Chalk Creek Road and absorb the costs into its Public Works Department budget.
Chalk Creek runs through what’s known as Service Area 8. The taxing district was formed during a 1980s oil boom and oil companies initially covered the lion’s share of maintenance costs.
But as oil production slowed, the companies’ land became less valuable. At same time, the residences in the service area ballooned in value by comparison, and so did their tax bills.
By 2024, nine year-round households were paying a combined $47,000. Resident Tyler Orgill told the council at that time it was 57% of the group’s total tax bill.
That road tax isn’t in the county’s draft FY2026 budget any more. The council will vote on the budget Dec. 10.
Council Chair Tonja Hanson said she would like to just tax the oil companies and not the residents, but that’s not a legal option right now.
“Legally, anyone who is in a service area, you're all in it together, kumbaya, right?” she said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Dec. 4. “And you cannot just separate some people or some companies that might be able to afford a higher tax, that just isn't fair. So it's all or none, and that's unfortunate.”
Service Area 8 isn’t being dissolved just yet. Its budget will simply be zero.
Summit County is a financial supporter of KPCW.
