With the Summit County Wildland Fire District wanting to hike its share of the property tax bill by about 2,100 percent, property owners are expressing mixed opinions about the suggested increase.
The public can speak out about the proposal at a hearing scheduled at the Sheldon Richins Building Dec. 30 at 6 p.m.
Summit County has fire districts in Park City, Kamas and Coalville. But homes in the wildland district fall outside those boundaries.
The wildland area is mostly comprised of neighborhoods in Tollgate, Brown’s Canyon, Weber Canyon and the Uinta Mountains, according to Summit County Public Works Administrator Kevin Callahan.
The proposal would increase the taxes on a $237,767 primary residence by $19.83 per year. Taxes on second homes and businesses in the district would jump $36.17 per year. Those in the wildland district who own primary homes worth $237,767 currently pay about 91 cents each year in taxes to the district.
The owners of second homes in Utah are taxed for the full value of their property while primary homeowners pay taxes on 55 percent.
Cabin owners like Salt Lake County resident Scott Clausen, who stay in Tollgate part time, say their taxes are already nearly twice as high as some of their neighbors who reside permanently in the neighborhood.
“Not being a primary owner we don’t get the exemption. And not only do we not get the exemption, we don’t get the services,” Clausen said in a telephone interview. “So I paid this year, I think it was $2,260 of taxes, and the services I received for that are a Dumpster.”
Taxes should only increase with the rate of inflation, he explained.
“How a public official can have the gall and the arrogance to raise the taxes beyond that, especially when the economy is not doing well, I don’t understand,” Clausen said. “They’re trolling Just like all the citizens that fund government, revenues are going down. But citizens look for ways to reduce their expenses so they can fit within their budget, whereas governments look for ways to maximize their income rather than reducing the services.”
But not everyone in Tollgate opposes the proposed tax increase.
There is high fire danger in his neighborhood in the summer, Tollgate resident Dan Heath said.
“We’ve got all around us large open areas with lightning and we’ve had a number of strikes up here over the years,” Heath said in a telephone interview. “It’s a little tough to get in here so response times can be a little longer.”
Tollgate is situated north of Interstate 80 a few miles east of Silver Creek.
The area is steep, wooded and dirt roads make fighting wildfires difficult.
“We try to make it easy for firefighters to get up on the plateau up here,” Heath explained. “But after that, it’s dirt, rock and road base.”
The proposed tax hike is reasonable, he added.
“I know that it’s something that we certainly don’t want to be under-funded on,” Heath said.
When officials formed the Summit County Wildland Fire District decades ago they envisioned levying a tax to pay for fire suppression needed to protect the remote properties, according to Callahan.
But the district has never had enough money to accomplish this task, he stressed.
In 2010, county officials pulled money from the general fund because taxes from homeowners in the wildland district only covered about 7 percent of the firefighting costs, according to Callahan.
The Summit County Council must conduct a Truth in Taxation hearing before increasing the tax rate. In 2011, the total budget for the county fire warden is expected to be about $79,000.