My Corner: Counties Should Not Try To Be Cities

Utah Taxpayers Association
By:Association President - Howard Stephenson

Thousands of residents in unincorporated Salt Lake County are rightly frustrated with the police fee

Mayor Peter Corroon and the Salt Lake County Council foisted on them. In their view, this “Corroon tax” is just another bill they have to pay, even though they aren’t getting any new services.

As past editions of The Utah Taxpayer have outlined, there is a serious question about whether this fee is even legal. However, the Corroon tax is really just a symptom of a much larger problem. Unlike almost every other county in Utah, Salt Lake County has chosen to provide municipal services to residents in the unincorporated county.

Police, fire and road service still need to be provided in unincorporated parts of the county, along with municipal services like planning, zoning, parks and recreation, garbage collection, etc. However, Salt Lake County ought to develop a plan divest itself of municipal services through annexation into an existing city, or incorporation as a city.

One of the problems of the County Council acting as a City Council for the unincorporated portions of the county is that most council members live in the municipalities, yet vote to impose taxes on citizens in the unincorporated parts of the county. Unfortunately, the politics of urging incorporation hurt taxpayers. This is taxation without representation at its worst. Because votes that increase taxes on residents in the unincorporated land don’t hurt the other Council members in the next election, too many of them are willing to join with the spenders on the Council and raise taxes on residents that aren’t their constituents.

While Utah’s economy was humming along, Salt Lake County’s sales tax revenue collected in the unincorporated county areas covered their ever‐expanding municipal services. When the economy cooled, Salt Lake County claimed they needed another revenue source, so they could keep providing these municipal services.

Police service is clearly a sympathetic county function, so they created the police fee, thereby distracting the public from the real problem of the additional municipal services consuming the revenues that should pay for police, fire and roads.

Salt Lake County has made no secret that they want authority to impose a six percent tax on energy use, just like cities do. They cited that desire during the public hearing they held on the Corroon tax, and they supported a proposal during the last legislative session that would have given them that authority.

At the urging of your Taxpayers Association, the Legislature has consistently refused to grant counties that authority. First, the state has an economic interest in providing islands in every county where large energy consumers can build. A six percent tax on energy producers would prevent the state from attracting the kinds of basic industry that have long supported Utah’s economy.

Second, not everyone wants all the amenities associated with living or doing business in a city. Some companies prefer to provide their own fire, security, hazardous material clean up, garbage collection and other services. Some residents are willing to pay less in taxes and fees, in exchange for hauling their own garbage to the dump, and not living in a residential area. Those companies and residents can and should enjoy that lifestyle in unincorporated portions of the county.

However, when a developer wants to create a new subdivision on unincorporated land, they should either annex into an existing city, or incorporate as a new city.

There is ample recent precedence for just that process. Just 15 years ago, two of Utah county’s fastest growing communities, Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs, did not exist. A few residents lived there, but they did not want or receive the same level of municipal services available in neighboring cities like Lehi.

Before developers turned those deserts into cities, the Utah County Commission required Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs to incorporate. These new cities assumed the responsibility to levy the taxes and other fees necessary to provide those additional municipal services.

For decades the Salt Lake County has acted as its own city. In fact, if the 144,502 residents of unincorporated Salt Lake County were counted as residents of a single city, it would be Utah’s second largest city.

Counties are not cities, nor should they pretend to be. Instead of looking for additional revenue sources to pay for municipal services, Salt Lake County should be encouraging unincorporated communities to annex or incorporate. That way they wouldn’t need the Corroon Tax.