OREM, Utah — One of Utah's largest water districts has voted to increase property taxes to pay for some major infrastructure projects.
The board governing the Central Utah Water Conservancy District voted unanimously on Wednesday to impose the property tax increase of .0004%. For the median priced home of about $602,000? It would equate to about $6.62 more per year.
"It helps us with the increases in inflation. Some of the projects we’re looking at have increased by 20, 30, 40% in the last year even," said Gene Shawcroft, the general manager of the district. "We continue to have aging infrastructure. You know very well we have growth rates that are off the chart and those folks are going to need a drink of water."
The Central Utah Water Conservancy District supplies water to more than 1.6 million people stretching from Salt Lake County into eastern Utah. Shawcroft said the tax hike is necessary, given that they do have some pressing needs including a pipeline at the mouth of Provo Canyon.
"That was built through an old landslide. At the time, geologists didn’t understand what was there. So that pipeline over the years has been squashed by the landslide coming down and it will rupture," he told FOX 13 News. "That supplies water to 1.6 million people."
In the event of an earthquake or other emergency, Shawcroft said they need to be able to provide a safe and stable water supply to a large portion of northern Utah.
At Wednesday's meeting, one person spoke against the tax increase. John Gadd, who lives in Pleasant Grove, told FOX 13 News he attended previous truth-in-taxation hearings (legally required hearings where a taxing entity has to justify the increase and take public comment) where others complained of the tax increase. But he said only two members of the water district's board showed up.
"We’re being taxed to death. There’s tax increases here in the county, there’s tax increases by the school district and with inflation, there’s just increases on families with tight budgets in Utah county and all the other countries you represent," Gadd told board members. "If you’re going to do these truth-in-taxation hearings? You really should show up."
The Utah Taxpayers Association has also said it is not a fan of the tax increase.
"Property tax revenue collected by the Central Utah Water Conservancy District has more than doubled over the last eight years," the group's president, Billy Hesterman, told FOX 13 News in a statement. "These small increases the district has made year by year is death by a thousand paper cuts to the taxpayer. In en era of exploding housing costs, it is mind boggling that the district would ask for more from taxpayers, which is essentially increasing the amount needed to own a home, instead of looking for ways to make the money it collects stretch a little further."
Members of the Salt Lake County Council have complained of water districts raising taxes in the past. Some have pushed for water districts to switch to more of a "user fee" to cover water use instead of relying on property taxes, believing it will encourage conservation. A legislative study on that very issue is expected this fall.
But Shawcroft said legally, the district is forced to do small tax increases to cover costs.
"We have a statutory limit of .0004%," he said. "We cannot go above that. Other taxing entities can go several years without a tax increase and then do a relatively large, 20, 30, 40, 50% increase."
