A board overseeing roads and public works for about 90,000 residents living outside cities in Salt Lake County tentatively opted for service cuts — rather than tax hikes — for its 2018 budget at a Wednesday night meeting that continued a debate among board members who said the district needs more independence.
Board members overseeing the Greater Salt Lake Municipal Services District (MSD) questioned the services they were paying the county to provide and debated budget options that could have included collecting millions in property taxes next year.
Instead, the board that oversees services for five townships and unincorporated areas unanimously voted to move forward with a scenario that cuts funding, with members calling for more transparency in how money and staff time are allocated from the county to the district.
“Do I want to vote to burden the people I represent with a tax increase when there’s so many unanswered questions?” asked Salt Lake County Councilman Richard Snelgrove, a Republican who represents about 11,000 unincorporated residents on the MSD board.
Snelgrove brought a budget draft that laid out revenues and expenses for the district for 2018.
“We need to look deeper and validate some of these numbers,” he said. “I don’t think we wanted to roll the dice.”
It’s still possible for the five townships in the district — Copperton, Emigration Canyon, Kearns, Magna, White City — and the county for the unincorporated areas to approve a stormwater service fee that could bring in about $3.2 million next year. But a tax hike isn’t in the cards. The board had a Sept. 1 deadline to give notice for a truth-in-taxation meeting, and it isn’t scheduled to meet again this month.
Under the budget framework that is set to be fleshed out before it’s finalized in December, the board voted not to find about $8.6 million that would have paid for road maintenance.
The six-member board first considered the option to raise taxes, and trustees representing four of the five townships voted in favor. But board voting is weighted by population and Snelgrove and Kearns Councilman Steve Perry, whose districts make up more than half the population of the MSD, voted against the tax, blocking it from moving forward.
The board then voted unanimously to approve the scenario that would lead to budget cuts and deferred road maintenance.
“We need to have independent authority” from the county, said Paulina Flint, a board member from White City, who initially proposed the board move forward with a budget that would have raised funds. “We cannot be the alter ego of Salt Lake County.”
Flint noted that by not approving a bigger budget that could pay for roads, the board risks allowing roads in some townships to deteriorate so badly that they’d need to be rebuilt. If that happens, governmental accounting standards would require the townships to set aside money in a depreciation account, she said.