The Kamas City Council has been discussing a way to relieve the tax burden on older residents for the past two months. One angle of attack could be reducing the water bills they pay to the city.
At the Sept. 8 council meeting, Mayor Matt McCormick summed up the situation facing some people on fixed incomes. When property values rise, families who have lived in Summit County for generations often face higher taxes.
“It's just hard when you have these older folks who may have paid $15,000 for a home, and now their tax liability is $3,000, and their monthly payment for their tax liability is twice what their monthly payment for the mortgage was,” he said. “It seems unfair.”
Kamas residents pay a flat fee for up to 15,000 gallons of water per month, with escalating fees for higher use. According to the Utah Division of Water Rights, Kamas’ 783 residential customers used on average about 13,000 gallons per month in 2025.
The council is considering giving older residents a discount if they use less than a certain amount.
“We're trying to help not tax our older folks out of their homes,” McCormick said at the Sept. 8 meeting.
Councilmembers have discussed making the threshold 1,000 gallons per month, which is the lowest flow that city water meters can measure. But the exact discount and the threshold triggering it haven’t been finalized.
The council also hasn’t decided whether to tie the discount directly to month-to-month water usage, to a yearly average or to something in between.
Kamas must schedule a public hearing before voting on any discount.
The discussions come about one year after the Kamas City Council approved rate hikes for the water and sewer systems, which have been running deficits in the hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.
Those fees will go up gradually until 2031. The full approved increase for water rates is 71%; sewer rates will eventually double.
