Heber City Finance Director Sara Nagel announced the city’s intent to raise its property tax rate in the upcoming fiscal year 2027, which begins on July 1, during a Heber City Council meeting on Tuesday.
The city plans on increasing its property tax rate by 5.2%. That means an average home — valued at $850,000 — would pay about $19 more in property taxes annually, while a business of that same value would pay about $34 more.
The purpose of the increase is to generate an additional $174,000 for the general fund.
The city has 27 different funds “to ensure that very specific revenue is being spent in very specific ways,” Nagel explained. The general fund is the largest and most flexible in its applicable use. It supports administration, public safety, planning and general operations. The Heber City Police Department takes the largest piece of the pie, about $7.5 million of the general fund in fiscal year 2027.
The proposed general fund would total almost $19 million in fiscal year 2027, representing over a quarter of Heber City’s $72 million budget. The city budgeted $92 million for fiscal year 2026 but is projected to spend about $20 million less than that by July 1.
Several revenue sources make up the general fund. Sales taxes contribute the most, almost $7.7 million in the fiscal year 2027 budget, while property taxes come in second at about $4.4 million.
In other words, property tax revenue will make up about 6% of the city’s overall budget in fiscal year 2027. Heber City has increased its property tax rate five times in the past 15 years: a 4.1% increase in fiscal year 2011, 32.3% in 2015, 10% in 2022, 8% in 2024 and 9.3% in 2025.
Nagel explained that the proposed increase in fiscal year 2027 is to cover the cost of inflation.
“The city is also impacted by inflationary costs with health insurance, (cost-of-living adjustments), materials, supplies, construction,” she said.
City Councilor Mike Johnston added that regular, smaller increases in the property tax rate prevent larger tax hikes like the 32% increase seen in 2015.
“Inflation over the past two (fiscal) years has been 5.2%. We have to capture that back, or we’re just behind, and we’ve got to start cutting something,” he said. “We can cut somebody’s job. We can cut snow plowing. We can cut lawn mowing. We can cut all sorts of things. You tell us what you want to cut.”
The proposed 5.2% property tax rate increase has not been approved. The City Council is in the middle of public workshops to discuss and tweak the tentative budget. The first workshop was Wednesday night, with the next at 6 p.m. on Friday and a third at 9 a.m. on Saturday, if necessary.
City Councilor Yvonne Barney said she was not in favor of raising property taxes 5.2% and hoped to lower or eliminate that increase during the workshops.
“I feel that, for the citizens of Heber City, who are obviously tightening their purse strings, that before we ask for any type of increase, that we need to maybe cut our budget and do what we can first,” she said.
The city was required to publicize the potential increase in the property tax rate by House Bill 236: Truth in Taxation Amendments, which passed during the 2026 legislative session.
Now, municipalities are required to notify the public if they are considering increasing the property tax rate when the finance director presents the tentative budget to the governing body. Previously, that notice was only required before the public meeting when the final budget was adopted.
Nagel explained that the bill reflects the state’s desire to increase transparency and public engagement when property taxes are raised.
“(The state has said), ‘We don’t want you to adopt a tentative budget, and then two months later, the answers are kind of already baked in,’” Nagel explained. “Citizens have said, ‘This doesn’t feel very authentic to me. It feels like you’ve already made that decision, and you’re not giving us a chance to really weigh in on it.’”
Heber City will hold a public hearing about the tentative budget for fiscal year 2027 on June 2.
If the city does not raise property taxes, it can approve the budget during the June 16 meeting.
If the city does raise property taxes, it would delay formal budget adoption until August to meet the state’s Truth in Taxation requirements, which include a public hearing on the property tax rate increase. In that case, the city would operate under the tentative budget between July 1 and the final budget adoption the next month.