A 0.25% sales tax produces roughly $6.5 million annually for a grant that funds transportation projects across Summit County and within local municipalities.
But the grant was on pause this year while the regional Council of Governments, comprised of county councilmembers and mayors, drew up a new grant procedure.
Some in the county government aren’t happy with the changes mayors made to the transportation grant. That’s because they limited High Valley Transit’s share of the money.
Kamas Mayor Matt McCormick told KPCW the new policy is designed to make the biggest countywide impact by paying for as many transportation and road projects as possible.
Park City Mayor Ryan Dickey also supports the changes and said the process should be “fair and equitable.” Both of their cities generate the majority of the sales tax that funds the grant.
“What Park City had seen over the last five years is that we’re generating over half the tax within the city limits, and the money coming back to Park City is around a quarter,” Dickey said in an interview.
A portion of the $6.5 million has always been reserved for eastern Summit County cities to use. Under the policy COG approved Nov. 2, that’s 10%.
The controversy is over what happens to the rest.
COG voted 5-4 to split the money into two “pools.”
High Valley Transit cannot apply for the larger of the two buckets of money unless it’s sponsored by a member of COG, such as Summit County itself.
Applicants seeking more than 55% of that pool get penalized. Those applications are scored lower and are less likely to be fully funded.
According to Caroline Rodriguez, High Valley’s executive director, that makes it more difficult to do “regionally significant” projects.
After voters passed the sales tax in 2016, Park City and Summit County initially used it for cross-jurisdictional initiatives, mostly in the Park City area: It paid off bonds the county issued for park-and-ride lots in Jeremy Ranch and at Ecker Hill, improvements in Richardson Flat and along state Route 248, plus Summit Bike Share.
County civil attorney Dave Thomas told the COG earlier this year that sharing the money has always been a balancing act.
“There was a recognition that all these [eastside] small cities had transportation needs as well, and thus a need for a grant program to address their needs while recognizing the bulk of the funding would go to regional transportation transit projects,” he said.
Now that the debt from the big transit projects is mostly paid off, the sales tax is primarily distributed through grants — including for state Route 224 bus rapid transit.
And although the sales tax was previously reserved for regionally significant projects, Park City says the Legislature loosened the leash in 2019.
Park City, which has its own transit agency, feared Summit County and High Valley Transit would dominate the grant process going forward. That’s according to Chris Robinson, the lone county councilmember who agrees with the revised policy.
“And their city wouldn't get any money — that's the fear,” Robinson told fellow councilmembers back in October. “Because High Valley and the county have a much bigger footprint. It's easier to demonstrate regionality and things like that.”
The county council sent Roger Armstrong to the Nov. 2 COG meeting where the new policy was finalized, not Robinson. In a tense back-and-forth with McCormick, Armstrong called the new policy a “solution in search of a problem.”
It had been produced in a subcommittee that included the Kamas mayor, Park City mayor, county councilmembers Robinson and Megan McKenna, plus county and Park City staff.
A week before the COG vote, county staff proposed an alternative policy that failed to gain traction. It would have made High Valley eligible for more funding with no scoring penalties, as was the status quo.
Dickey said COG’s preferred policy won’t limit collaboration going forward. The city touts previously contributing $6 million to bus rapid transit.
“Under one of the pools, High Valley Transit can apply for funding on its own. So they are able to apply for funding in a way that Park City Transit is not, and we further fully expect to be a sponsoring entity for High Valley Transit as we have been in the past,” he said.
But Rodriguez objects to having to “ask permission” to apply for the largest pool of funding. As part of the municipal government, Park City Transit doesn’t need a sponsor.
“You’re effectively constraining the regional transit district's ability to obtain capital funds to do exactly what we are intended to do, and that is address congestion and deliver critical transportation infrastructure projects in the Wasatch Back,” Rodriguez said.
From Rodriguez's perspective, large, cross-jurisdictional projects have the biggest impact. High Valley's 2026 budget included $114 million in expenses.
The root of the disagreement, for Summit County Councilmember Canice Harte, is the fact that there are two transit districts in the first place.
“If it wasn't for that, if you had a single regional transportation district, then it’s a lot easier,” he said at the council’s Oct. 28 meeting.
Since there aren’t any transportation sales tax grants this year, the money is rolled over into 2027. It will be COG’s first year implementing the new policy.
COG evaluates grant applications and recommends funding amounts to the county council. Councilmembers can’t change line items — only veto the entire year’s grant allocations.
They considered doing so in 2025, when Park City wanted to fund a neighborhood bike path, but thought better of it.
Summit County and Park City Municipal are financial supporters of KPCW.
