After promising quarterly updates to the council about making property taxes more equitable in Wasatch County, Assessor Todd Griffin will give the council an update on what his office is doing in conjunction with the Utah State Tax Commission.
Griffin and the Wasatch County Taxpayers Association have described an imbalance in property tax rates over the past decade. They said some homes have been assessed more frequently than others, and as a result, property owners who are assessed after a long period are seeing their rates triple when they’re brought up to date.
Griffin took over as assessor in January 2021. He said he was aware of the imbalances when he started the job, and they could be related to the small office lacking resources to keep up with rapid growth over the past decade.
As County Manager Dustin Grabau explained, the state taxing authority is stepping in to help the county fix the problem.
“The tax commission has been regularly having staff members come, and they’ve provided some technical support, analytics and some general support for our process, and some training and expertise so that we might be able to do it a little more efficiently and effectively, so they’ve just been holding our hand through the process to make sure that we get to where we want to be,” he said.
Grabau said residents can speak during the property tax discussion.
Another item on the agenda is an update on a 21-acre North Fields property the county is purchasing. The county will pay just shy of $2 million for the land, which Grabau said it could use for a road if the Utah Department of Transportation decides to build a bypass route through the property. He said the property is located within the route where the county originally planned to build a bypass route.
Also during the meeting, Grabau will discuss short-term rental policies. He said the county asked to review those as people rent their homes out on platforms like AirBnB and VRBO more frequently.
and an update from the Military Installation Development Authority. MIDA is the state-sponsored overseer of the Mayflower Mountain Resort development.
The meeting is at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Wasatch County Administration Building. It will include a public comment period near the beginning. To attend the meeting via Zoom, visit wasatch.utah.gov.
