[0:01] We'd like to call the order of public or city council's special truth and taxation public hearing name, Tuesday, August 11, 226, 6 p.m., we'd like to welcome all council members, I think we're going to listen to the council members alone. I know she's not coming.

[0:21] Welcome, welcome everyone. I do. It was an attendance for us today and joining us online. I'm just going to briefly kind of go over how we are going to go

[0:31] tonight, I'm under two, just kind of explained to everyone how it handles out.

[0:38] We'll first be hearing from our city administrators out there and then you'll provide a kind

[0:43] of a presentation explaining the proposed tax increase and then we'll move into the public

[0:50] comments for those who are in person.

[0:53] In person, I feel completely new, then we'll move to, I think, Sarah, to the verbal through

[0:58] Microsoft Teams, that's correct.

[0:59] And then we're going to move to on three under that in writing through the Q&A future Microsoft teams.

[1:07] And then following that, we'll have our public comments by

[1:12] the finance secretary, Ms. Roy.

[1:14] And we'll share the city's property tax statement on that.

[1:19] And we'll go to that point to the city's administrative check-in.

[1:48] We've been working on this for a few months now. There might be some restants here that

[1:53] this might be somewhat new to them or some of this is probably going to be familiar to them.

[2:00] So, can we have a piece of TV on the back to you?

[2:03] Yes.

[2:06] So initially the proposal was trying to increase our staffing for the police

[2:12] and fire department. So this is stemming from some surveys we've done with our

[2:17] neighbouring communities to see what their staffing levels are. I mean that's

[2:22] one aspect of that. But that's what you see up here is probably the thing that is at

[2:27] least in my mind is the administrator, which would be helpful for our city, is

[2:33] additional work walls was to add two police officers and also some additional

[2:38] funding for our reserve program and also so many for retention. So the

[2:45] reserve program is we we bring an officer from other cities that have

[2:49] experience they'll work a ship or two for us. So we get the experience of the

[2:56] officer working for us as a city that officers trying to make the election

[3:01] money they wanted to get some extra shifts, but we get an

[3:05] experience officer that is now on our streets by doing the

[3:10] control. So we've had to sign, which would be the equivalent of

[3:14] one person through the reserve program, and then we're looking

[3:19] at two other police officers. This was the initial request back

[3:25] when we talked about this in February March. We were also asking

[3:30] for three new full-time firefighters.

[3:33] The initial cost for all of this was about $683,000,

[3:37] which the recommendation of the staff

[3:40] was to do with the property tax.

[3:43] At the time, based on the numbers that we had,

[3:47] it was gonna be $4.16 per month

[3:50] on an average home plus a growth.

[3:53] Now, this is before we got our new numbers

[3:55] from the county, in essence,

[3:57] the average home plus a growth of the times

[3:58] just $580,000.

[4:02] So that's the number that we've been working off

[4:05] as we've been having these discussions.

[4:08] So what I'm showing up here is the need,

[4:10] this is why we are requesting this,

[4:13] is that we are trying to get more sworn officers,

[4:15] if you look at our sworn officers,

[4:18] per 1,000 population.

[4:20] Ideally, you're right at the 1.0 number.

[4:23] We're a little less than that, 0.79.

[4:25] nine. So this will help bolster that number and because one of them is a reserve

[4:30] that doesn't necessarily count towards our full-time officers. But this will

[4:35] put us in a better position. And then on the fire department side, we run one

[4:42] station and this is the reason why that number is so low for us, because we have

[4:46] three shifts in one station. And right now, those three shifts, we have five

[4:52] full-timers. Ideally, on a given shift, we have seven firefighters on our shift, so we are relying

[4:58] on two part-timers to fulfill us getting to seven on our shift. Part-timers generally

[5:06] speaking to similar reserve program, they're generally full-time somewhere else that are certified

[5:12] firefighter, and they're coming and they're working a shift or two for us. The thing about part-timers

[5:19] is sometimes you're asking people to work and they don't want to work as far as the part

[5:25] time is concerned. Or we have a full time limit goes on vacation and so now we just need

[5:34] a part time limit to backfill that just to get back up to 5. So ideally on a shift we're

[5:40] going to run 7. Sometimes we don't quite get to 7, maybe we'll have 6 in our worst cases

[5:47] it's five, which we can still do what we need to do at five, but it's not as ideal.

[5:55] So we want to bolster that number right now, but we're requesting this to get to six

[6:00] full-timers for shift, and by the other we get to seven, we have all the seven.

[6:06] That's not what the request is this year, but we do eventually want to get to seven.

[6:10] And that might take a year or two before we get there, as far as that's concerned.

[6:17] So that's a request that is on the table and through the property tax.

[6:22] Now in the course of going through this process, the hard part for us is staff, particularly

[6:28] on the finance side, is we only have the information that we have as we're trying to project revenues

[6:34] and we're trying to project expenses so that when we get into any given moment, for

[6:41] instance, we're trying to project our self-tax revenues for next year and we're in March.

[6:46] We're working off of probably seven months out of 12, but what our current year self-tax

[6:51] numbers are.

[6:52] And so when we're trying to project out, that just makes things a little tricky.

[6:55] So as we went through this process, the council said we want you to re-evaluate this and

[7:01] to see if there's a way that we can reduce that number

[7:03] for $4.16 a month down to some of these else.

[7:09] And so that's when we went back to staff.

[7:11] Fortunately, by the beginning of June,

[7:14] our last two months of sales tax numbers

[7:15] had come in higher than when we had projected.

[7:18] That's paid up some money that we could use

[7:20] out of our existing general fund monies

[7:23] that we weren't gonna need to have an additional tax money

[7:27] to pay for that additional property tax money.

[7:31] So for a burden, it was initially $600,000.

[7:34] I think we reduced it to give you that number.

[7:37] So 120, about 120,000 new cells texture would move up.

[7:43] So we had four things that we evaluated.

[7:46] Thank you.

[7:51] It's a blast.

[7:54] The new cells texture was $129,841 additional.

[7:59] We also have a re-enversiment from our

[8:04] school resource officer from just school

[8:07] where we've been in negotiations to have them pay more for that.

[8:11] And that finally came to fruition.

[8:13] So that's more money that kept us back into the general fund.

[8:16] And then we have a new hotel that was open to even town.

[8:19] When we were putting the budget together, it was I thought

[8:23] it was going to be opening later in the year

[8:26] kind of find out. They did open I think in June we didn't have July. So we do get

[8:32] what's called a transit room tax off of that. We estimate that to be at about

[8:36] $30,000 based on the other hotel that we have in our community. So that was new

[8:41] money that we were able to put into that. And then we also had some money that was

[8:46] initially in the capital fund to fund cameras, police spotting hands and things like

[8:52] that we moved it over into the operating fund because it was a three-year contract and so

[8:59] I felt comfortable using capital money, one-time monies for that, probably makes more sense

[9:05] to have the money in the operating fund, but that one could go either way for my opinion.

[9:12] And so we took that money and it was in the operating fund and we put that back into the capital

[9:15] fund.

[9:16] So as a result, that free that $317,421, which is now coming out of existing funds and doesn't need to be funded through the property tax.

[9:29] So that reduced the property tax request for $4.16 amount down to $2.26 and that's on the average home.

[9:39] So Denise has been going over the impact schedule and on the impact schedule it gets

[9:46] detailed as far as the overall numbers.

[9:49] But essentially the revenue request is for $365,667.

[9:56] And that is $2.26 per month on an average home which according to the county is $600,163.

[10:05] dollars. So that is, that's about the request. So with that money, what the state requires is that we have to be very specific as to what that money is going to be expanded on.

[10:16] And so when we put this together initially, that was the two police officers in reserve, and also three firefighters, including outfitting, including funding for retention with our police department.

[10:32] So when we are able to find existing funds of $317,000 and reduce that burden, what we

[10:38] are now, what will be funded with the property tax if we're going to go through is one place

[10:44] officer and then help us fund essentially another officer through the research program

[10:49] and then it will be some money for retention.

[10:52] And on the fire department, it will be for two to fire buyers.

[10:55] And we're still getting three fire buyers, but we're paying for one amount of existing funds

[10:59] and we're paying for one of our police officers

[11:00] out of existing funds.

[11:02] So when it comes to the discussion of the property tax,

[11:05] that's not what is being contemplated

[11:07] because we're already going to be able

[11:09] to fund those through the system.

[11:14] I think one thing I want to show you,

[11:16] this is a question that we get asked

[11:18] from time to time, is what does this look like

[11:22] for other cities?

[11:25] There are a decent amount of cities

[11:28] that they've decided that they're going to pursue a property tax increase.

[11:32] In fact, I think there's a few...

[11:35] That's kind of a humanism on there, aren't they?

[11:37] Yeah.

[11:40] Yeah, there's a lot going on.

[11:41] I mean, they think this is just one aspect of what we're working on.

[11:45] And so this is a chart that represents if every city with their proposed tax increases,

[11:51] you're supposed to go through.

[11:53] So, a good example is the amount they have they're hearing,

[11:56] that's Thursday, their rate is going to increase dramatically

[12:03] because this is interesting to me.

[12:07] They're going to fund their entire police department

[12:09] out of their property tax.

[12:11] That's the proposal, that's what they want to do.

[12:13] Now, if we were to do that, I think in June speaking,

[12:16] our police departments like $6 million

[12:18] dollars and revenues were probably actually formally and we have to increase a

[12:24] property tax to million dollars probably a 50 percent increase if we just want to

[12:29] fund our police department using their property tax. So that's a tactic 30

[12:33] using and that's that's fine that's up to email now but because of that that's

[12:37] moving them they used to have one lower property taxes. I know several

[12:42] focus frames as well. They're growing and so they have to go to

[12:48] fire stations and they have to staff those and so that's an outcome of growth. So as you can

[12:56] see we're probably on the less than the 50th percentile our rates at the City Council goes through

[13:03] with this. It goes from 0.00938 to 0.001020. So that's what's reflected on the graph here. So that is

[13:18] In a nutshell, that's the reasons why, and then we're just comparing the other cities to census upon your reference.

[13:25] I'll say that's our needs, or our needs, compared to other cities, is one way to do it.

[13:30] That's not the main reason I would say that we would do a tax increase, but it does help with the perspective of kind of what's going on.

[13:38] To my understanding, sort of talking about senior hills in America,

[13:41] I think they're all doing the same thing right now.

[13:43] They're in there to the taxation area.

[13:47] Okay, so that's all I have is sort of questions.

[13:49] Well, I just think it may stay,

[13:51] because I think there's no information out there

[13:52] that says it's 16.5% of the...

[13:55] Oh, yeah.

[13:56] We're at 8.75% now.

[13:58] I think you just go to that.

[13:59] Yeah.

[13:59] But the average is going to be good.

[14:01] So on the $2.26 per month,

[14:04] that would be an 8.75% increase based on what people paid last year.

[14:09] Okay, so initially it was 16.55, that was our old number back in May and early June, but

[14:16] with the council, with the rate out that was going to go into the property tax notices

[14:22] and reduce that rate down to the 1875, so we can almost cut that in half for 16.55 to 1875.

[14:30] Thank you, Mary, I had a mention, I think.

[14:44] We just asked those who were in person to come out to the state fair, state fair filming,

[14:51] and then you'll have three minutes for that.

[14:53] We will go ahead and open the door.

[15:03] First,

[15:07] I want to want to compliment the city council for working in 1655 down to the 8-something percent

[15:15] awesome. We always like not being taxed more. Beautiful. That's a good thing. I think the reason,

[15:25] you know,

[15:25] We had a real interest in this, you know, increasing taxes is a big thing.

[15:30] It should be done lightly.

[15:32] You know, last time when we were talking for the previous time, it wasn't 16%.

[15:39] That's a pretty big, that's a double digit, you know, increase.

[15:42] And greatly, I think you listened to some of the citizens that worked this out.

[15:47] It's a pencil to the paper and figure it out.

[15:50] And that's awesome.

[15:52] So I can commend you for that.

[15:55] But I guess what I also want to say is, what can we do more?

[15:59] You know, in the private sector, when you have, you don't have enough money.

[16:04] And the first thing you do is say, how can we cut as usually layoffs?

[16:08] There's things that happen to say, we have to stay within our budget.

[16:12] We don't have this unlimited pool.

[16:14] If you just say, we're going to tax more to increase.

[16:17] I would look at salaries, look at areas that you can cut and try to cut taxes.

[16:22] because it is a huge burden on all of us these days.

[16:26] And it's not $20 a year.

[16:28] It's not a huge significant amount.

[16:30] It's sort of the principal.

[16:32] And overall, it's a huge little thing that happens.

[16:35] We have $20 a year.

[16:36] The school district charges more.

[16:38] This charges more.

[16:39] Food, whatever it might be, continues to go on.

[16:42] I know right now I've forecasted that the world of areas

[16:46] are going to bring in about $10 million of additional funding.

[16:50] That's awesome. That's what we need is retail business. That saves us.

[16:55] I put the tax burden on somebody else and not the citizens.

[17:00] But this is a direct tax on our property. It's a hard pill to swallow.

[17:05] And I would encourage you to look at other ways, look at ways to cut expenses

[17:10] because that's what the private sector would do. I appreciate all the work that's been done.

[17:15] I believe there's still even more that could be done.

[17:18] So that's all I have to do.

[17:23] Anyone else?

[17:25] Please come forward.

[17:35] My name is John and Kirk.

[17:37] I'm here to speak in favor of the increase.

[17:40] I was pleasantly surprised to hear that this city has actually

[17:45] done this work to figure out how to bring it down.

[17:48] So good job.

[17:51] But quite frankly, the numbers are...

[17:55] I mean, your guys' job is, I think everyone here and everybody in the city understands and appreciates that your job is to not just merely provide for infrastructure, but protect our citizens.

[18:06] Okay, so I think, I think you have a beauty on this one, our numbers are below.

[18:12] I'm pretty sure, I don't have any of you, have ever answered an item on a phone call when or if anybody here has answered an item on a phone call.

[18:22] knowing that there were not enough officers or firefighters under the

[18:25] handle. If you sat on a phone call for 15 minutes, taking instructions for CPR

[18:30] hoping that the next car medic can show up. I don't think anybody here answered

[18:35] the phone call that I did.

[18:39] When I have Sergeant Joseph Adams which shot and

[18:42] killed.

[18:45] I was one speaking with the first person there that witnessed it and it

[18:50] longer than we wanted. Look, we guys numbers, they're still low. And we cannot be low. We don't

[18:56] have school, we don't have a lot of resource officers in every school. I don't want my kid

[19:00] going to school and having an incident. We never remember tired and you have to do need to raise

[19:07] this. Two dollars a month. I just need the idea of anything to come up and even argue about that.

[19:13] I think it's unfortunate. So I have to give you a wish. You will have to hold out more so you can

[19:18] better protection. There are officers not just more that are trained to keep them, so I'm in favor, please.

[19:26] Thank you.

[19:28] Anyone else?

[19:33] Welcome.

[19:34] Thank you.

[19:36] Did your prescriptions, if I want to see you, I have to put them back on there.

[19:39] I know.

[19:40] You're good.

[19:40] I just made a show on my last name is Barry.

[19:43] I'll take my off.

[19:45] That's also a read.

[19:47] So that's my other issue.

[19:51] There's two things I'm thinking about.

[19:53] John Williams, who I mentioned about budgeting on either a personal basis or a business basis.

[20:00] We look at anything we have to do and say, if it's not kind of fun everything, you have

[20:05] to put it in the hierarchy.

[20:06] And one of the things that, as much fun as a part fireworks, an activity that the city

[20:13] response of might be the police and the fire department of garrison is the

[20:18] current they are very important there should be a hierarchy so if we're

[20:23] bringing money in we should be looking at the most important things to fund

[20:27] first and then if we have a surplus that's a you know what where you can

[20:32] review them and we can take care of that again example of the fireworks part activity

[20:39] to be something like that.

[20:40] Those things, while they're fun,

[20:43] they're not, they don't mess with people's livelihood,

[20:46] and probably taxes, in my opinion, mess with them.

[20:49] My livelihood, because it takes something away from

[20:51] what I'm trying to provide for my family, the South of Canada.

[20:55] I bought my home in 2020 here, became a pro-profit.

[20:58] We love Pleasant Grove.

[20:59] It was in wonderful places a little bit.

[21:02] But the value that they had at that then,

[21:05] was just number 400,000.

[21:08] and their value is, again, this is the county that does what I understand, but the percentage

[21:12] is everybody gets that percentage of cut. It's now valued in this tax year at $631,000.

[21:20] Is it worth that? I don't know. To get the money out of the sell it, so I don't want

[21:26] to do that, I don't want to stay. So I don't have that money here. That's unrealized game

[21:31] when you look at it from a business standpoint. So rate, remaining the same, multiplied by my

[21:36] increase in probability value gives everyone across the board in that slide

[21:41] everybody saw it gives you an increase you're getting an increase we should

[21:47] be able to afford it out of that that is the race that we get and so now I

[21:53] look at it I would vote no on anything like that when the values that kept going

[21:57] up if it changes that then we could look at it again but John John hence my

[22:03] said it goes it just it's always seems like it's going up and up and up and it's it's

[22:09] it's almost $2 per house or something like that per month so 25 bucks a

[22:14] year or like that 30 bucks is that gonna kill me? No it's not but it's death by a

[22:19] thousand cuts and one of these days there's gonna be a senior up here who says I

[22:25] can't afford to stay here because they're taxing me out of my home because they

[22:31] They can't go out like I might be able to, or somebody else is still working, pick up a side

[22:36] gave increase to this, it's too heavy enough to bring you a little more money.

[22:40] And that's what everybody, that's what most people do.

[22:42] They figure out second jobs, that's it, and thank you for your time, thank you, thank you

[22:48] for doing this.

[22:55] Jeff Adams, this isn't so much for you guys, but for everybody else, it's listening online.

[23:02] What services do you want to cut?

[23:03] But because we can cut services, and then we might not need as many officers to fire fighters.

[23:10] This kind of, if your neighbor's dog is parking,

[23:15] somebody broke into your car and you don't have them there to tame.

[23:18] You like Salt Lake, give them a website and they call in and they get a, at least report numbers they can file with their insurance.

[23:26] You want somebody to come and take your car or take the keys out of your car and lock them in?

[23:30] If we're not an occupant, cut services, cut the parts, cut the right sign, cut the library, cut services, because that's where it's gonna be.

[23:41] So, unfortunately, things do need, things cost more, and there needs to be increases.

[23:45] This is a really small increase, and by the way, I'm in favor of it, because I've seen firsthand what the difference is,

[23:51] having officers at a season to show up to a call as opposed to an officer, and I don't know how many people know this,

[23:57] five years ago are beginning officers made less than $20 an hour. I believe it was a 1982 or something

[24:03] I got to start English. Five 10-year officers weren't picking over 30. So when we talked about cutting

[24:10] salaries, hell no. We were the lowest paid department in this entire county for decades. Now I think

[24:17] we're a second or a third. We're not at the bottom anymore, we've come up. Thank you. So it's not going

[24:23] salaries, that's just not going to be an option, cut services or raise taxes. I'm

[24:30] sure that you guys at one point when we start getting more taxes than like you've

[24:33] already done, you've already kind of shown the direction you want to go. I would

[24:37] love to stay here and you guys say, hey, guess what? We're going to do a two percent

[24:40] reduction in property taxes because our cell taxes have now improved what we

[24:44] thought that they were and you're probably still going to have people of your

[24:47] vision more than about it. So I don't envy the position that you guys are in but

[24:52] So if somebody wants to have a problem with how we have to pay and it's two bucks a month,

[24:57] when you need the, please do something that you won't do, touch it, figure it out, because

[25:04] that's where it's going to be, because that's where other cities are.

[25:06] Not just in our own county, in our own state, but throughout the country, there are cutting

[25:12] services.

[25:13] So you want to cut services or you want to pay a couple bucks more a month to make sure

[25:17] that you can get yourself taken care of.

[25:19] Thank you.

[25:19] Thank you. Any comments?

[25:31] I'm not seeing anyone else come up.

[25:34] We're going to move to our second portion of this.

[25:37] Sierra, I'm going to check in with you on the online verbal public comments.

[25:42] We do not have to go online at this time.

[25:44] Okay, so then I think we move then to the written or any written comments.

[25:52] Thank you.

[25:58] So that said that I think Scott will move into the item three.

[26:02] We're going to be going back up to your council meeting.

[26:05] So I just want to understand.

[26:06] Council is not taking a vote tonight.

[26:08] The vote is going to be next week.

[26:09] Who will be going to adopt our budget?

[26:11] Tonight's purpose was for the Parliament to make their comment.

[26:15] So it's up to you if anybody wants to comment on anything if not that we would go to.

[26:19] Yes, so before I move back up to your council,

[26:22] So we can do, because I think there's some questions

[26:25] about how problem tax works,

[26:28] and if you could explain that,

[26:29] because yes, we are adding more citizens

[26:33] to more problems, but could you not probably

[26:37] adjust that?

[26:38] Yeah, you know, thank you Scott.

[26:39] We appreciate that.

[26:39] I just want to make sure that I hear you officially

[26:41] close the public.

[26:42] Oh, sorry.

[26:43] I said, we'll go ahead and close the public here

[26:46] and at this time, and we'll light up

[26:48] and see if this is your shot.

[26:49] Sorry, thanks.

[26:50] Yeah, the question comes up and sometimes it's just a misunderstanding that when your property

[26:55] value goes up, then your taxes are automatically increased with it.

[26:59] The state has set it up that as your value of your home increases, your rate goes down.

[27:06] Now, this is done on a citywide basis, and so it's not as simple as if your assess valuation

[27:12] goes up $25,000 that the rate is going to adjust specifically for your property.

[27:19] doesn't work that way. But in general sense when we get our assessed valuation as a city

[27:24] for the city as a whole, then our rate is reduced to make sure our revenues are the same

[27:30] as what they were last year. So we are not benefiting from the increased values in the home.

[27:36] We do benefit from new growth. So if we have days that were not on the tax rolls last year,

[27:42] then are on the tax rolls this year. That's new money that comes into the city. But an increase

[27:46] value is not a cash cow from the city. I need to research this because I do remember when I started

[27:55] here in 2010 our rate was over 0.002 something and now we're 0.009 because the value of what the

[28:06] property value plus and rho in 16 years has increased quite a bit but that's why our rate has dropped.

[28:16] the graphic of the slide of our rate going down and it came up a little bit on the

[28:21] table.

[28:22] And then it slipped down again and so that were effectively going back to the rate that

[28:28] existed.

[28:28] I think two years ago, something like that was about this what we do.

[28:32] Yeah.

[28:33] So I think you did show that to me in a public meeting.

[28:34] Yeah.

[28:35] And that was probably at the $4.16.

[28:38] So I probably hasn't come up this much.

[28:41] slightly misperception from the public comes from the fact that their

[28:45] rule bill does keep going on, but it just doesn't pertain to the city's

[28:50] taxing authority. It's the schoolwork. You probably have to percentage off hand or maybe

[28:55] did that change percent of your property tax choice to the city?

[28:58] It was the city. So what did you notice from the school?

[29:01] Yeah, the county and the school plan to the city rule it.

[29:03] So there's a lot of ways it goes out there, rates are dropped as well.

[29:06] But they might raise their taxes on a different

[29:09] under different rule. For us, we're applying on power taxes for the city, what we control.

[29:15] We aren't raising money every year. If your tax bill goes up, it has nothing to do with

[29:20] what we're raising on the less we have this kind of truth and taxation or a specific tax increase

[29:25] with the government. So, just want to make sure that that's understood that we're such a small,

[29:30] small part of that tax bill and we only control what we can control.

[29:35] Well, I think there's, I think there's going to be something that raised by 16% of the, you

[29:42] know, public books that the tax bill total status is due here, just recently.

[29:48] And, I mean, 16% of a $30,000 tax bill, the one that should be saving you points at the

[29:55] But the bonus, it was 16.

[29:56] And it was 15, we moved the tape, right?

[29:59] So...

[30:00] So when, when, when we hear that, it's, it's, it's now, we're recommending eight percent increase on the city, on the city portion, which is 15 percent.

[30:15] What's the next subject that we have?

[30:17] Council.

[30:18] Okay.

[30:18] The other questions.

[30:21] So the other questions, we're just going to see you.

[30:25] But I don't have a question.

[30:26] Please.

[30:27] Okay.

[30:28] Go ahead.

[30:28] Yeah, I just wanted to say, you know,

[30:31] I think that we really appreciate the engagement

[30:34] of public Congress decision.

[30:35] We have a survey and the people respond to the survey

[30:38] for key statistics that we see here we can.

[30:40] And that just gives us information as a council

[30:43] to make these decisions that we can see

[30:45] are kind of needed for our city and I appreciate the public's engagement. I just, I have also

[30:51] paying attention around us. One of those tax rates and increases are going. And, for instance,

[30:58] the amount, and I didn't ask one last week, it was 183%, so if you're considering a 50% increase,

[31:06] Cedar Hills, our neighbor, to one of this considering 19.5%, American Fourth is considering

[31:13] an 8.48%, which is $33 a standard household there, so an actual higher dollar amount, but

[31:20] a similar percentage.

[31:22] And then even outside of Utah County, looking at cities that are similar size to us, Wood Cross

[31:26] is at 46%, when a high 42%, Draper Salt Lake is 25%, Draper Utah is from 2%, K2 Bill 14%.

[31:38] So this is a reality of our state and wanting to make sure that we provide the services that we feel are necessary for our citizens.

[31:49] And I can tell you, and I know, I've talked to a lot of, you know, John in the office, to a lot of the folks here that I mean comments,

[31:57] that we get those very seriously and then we didn't go back and did a lot of our own research

[32:02] to make sure that what we're doing is just being responsible for the city. And what I can say

[32:08] is as I look at our directors and we have our public works director here, we have our police chief

[32:14] and our fire chief and so on. Our captains are here and as I look at what they're doing for the city

[32:21] and what they're doing it with, I know that our dollars are being spent in a very responsible

[32:29] way. I've gone through the numbers. I've gone through the budget. I've asked questions. I've

[32:34] sat down with Scott and Denise multiple times. We've had discussions and and some other things

[32:39] that reports generated that have raised some discussion points. And as I look at our directors

[32:47] in our divisions in our city, I am impressed by what they do with what they have.

[32:55] And when I look at our police department and our fire department, what we have to deal with.

[33:01] And the difficult things that they do for us, there's no way that I would ever consider cutting those services.

[33:12] We have private citizens, generals up areas, part of the gunner and

[33:16] current. We have private citizens that are doing a lot of money to help our

[33:19] police department to help shoulder that cost. Those are private citizens and

[33:24] businesses that indicate time and money to help our police force have the things

[33:29] they need. And as a city, I agree with Mr. Burke, it's our duty to provide those

[33:36] services to our citizens so that we know that we've done what we can to keep them

[33:40] say and protected in the most vulnerable time. So I really just appreciate our city

[33:46] directors and administration going through the exercises with us doing the hard work

[33:54] finding where we can save a bunch of money because we did and we did cut things that maybe weren't

[34:01] necessary. We did budget differently so we could get everything that we identified as a need

[34:08] for half of the property tax it creates.

[34:11] And I think that our staff and our administration

[34:13] that shows a lot of character, a lot of ability,

[34:16] and I really appreciate it, so.

[34:18] That's all I see.

[34:19] Thank you.

[34:19] Just for the rest of the day.

[34:21] Well, I can see the standing location on that one.

[34:25] I do want to, I, one thing I do want to say,

[34:30] and I agree with Steve 100%.

[34:34] I want to address the revenue coming in from the growth

[34:37] that will only continue. And I think that will help us fund services that we need, especially

[34:50] as our daytime population down the road. I do want to say this about how I feel about

[35:02] hiring police and fire full-time. And I'm not a doomsdayer, but if there is a catastrophe,

[35:14] your staff that is full-time will come to your town. Your staff is part-time. We'll go to their full-time

[35:23] And I love having qualified, educated, smart,

[35:33] tenured, first responders in my town

[35:39] when a catastrophe happens.

[35:46] I do. I also echo Steve's comments

[35:52] and I had a little flip to dough, I think Mr. Kirk and Jim, you made a liar out of me in the sense that I said no one would ever advocate for a tax increase, but I appreciate your words and your perspective and your willingness to stand up as essentially one on the island to say this is the right thing to do.

[36:18] so often we have what I would call the extremely local minority who stands up and

[36:26] criticizes the very heavy responsibility that we take. And I appreciate you standing up

[36:32] and being willing to say that. Mr. Johannes Meier mentioned is the principal and I

[36:40] absolutely agree that it's the principal. Unfortunately to me it's the principal

[36:46] that I am not willing.

[36:49] At least in the current circumstances to cut everything else simply

[36:54] because we want to make sure that it's only an outline for police. This is a community

[37:00] that we are a part of. The services that we provide, especially for those in great

[37:07] seeing my first city responsibilities and volunteering opportunities, were with the library.

[37:13] I spent six years on the library board and I know what a community center our library

[37:20] is where it provides an opportunity for those who may not have internet at all or may

[37:26] not have the resources that so many of us take for granted that benefit and we have a

[37:31] responsibility, and I don't consider this socialism at all, but we have a responsibility to make

[37:37] make sure that especially the least in our community have access for resources, access

[37:45] to the programs, access to the community opportunities like the library, the rec center,

[37:51] the programs that made such a difference in the lives of our neighbors.

[37:57] And I am grateful to stand behind that principle that I will stand for for everyone and complete

[38:03] be supported this time, this need are fired and are police and the great things that they do.

[38:10] Thank you. Councilor Wood and everything. No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, we've talked a lot about

[38:15] this a lot of different avenues from expenses to revenue. That's my, that's what I do every day,

[38:28] And the city is an amazing job ensuring that we match our

[38:34] current use of our tax generate revenue to a

[38:40] appropriate thickness.

[38:41] And, you know, those questions, good answers, Great

[38:45] Wars, capability for the most direction,

[38:49] There was change, there was, and I had no questions

[39:00] I'll just speak a few words here, okay, thank you.

[39:04] I appreciate your engagement.

[39:09] It helps me a lot.

[39:10] I appreciate that.

[39:13] I think there's a little bit of a mess concession.

[39:18] I think people think the city is immune to inflation

[39:23] or cost increase that because we're government or just entity that cities are, that we don't get affected by gas prices and supplies.

[39:35] Something is like for life that go for our parts can cost you know increase thousands of dollars.

[39:39] So there are things that we get affected by that we have to increase our costs and you know unfortunately castles on us.

[39:46] We can maintain our level of service that we want for our citizens but I think that gets forgotten sometimes.

[39:50] So because we're not a private business for your business and we're a public business that doesn't affect us, but it does.

[39:59] And I think the other misconception that I kind of heard is that we're doing all this in a business in tax growth.

[40:04] So where is all that revenue going?

[40:06] With that tax growth comes the growth of more people and more businesses and it more impact on our services, which is why our first responders are so critical at this time.

[40:16] especially with the new hotel going in.

[40:19] More housing going in and businesses,

[40:21] we want to make sure those are protected and safe.

[40:24] And my job as a council member first and foremost,

[40:26] is to help save people in the area of the community.

[40:29] So if that's taken care of,

[40:30] then I hope we can address the other areas

[40:33] that we need to work on.

[40:37] When residents spoke about the livelihood of the community,

[40:41] I would say when we have about six to seven thousand people

[40:44] down and join the fireworks on our 250th celebration of the country, that's part of our livelihood.

[40:50] And so we try to balance that livelihood with the needs of our first responders and our

[40:56] clerks and our recreation. And so we try, that's our job, is to make sure everything is covered.

[41:02] Because what one person thinks is a livelihood may not be the same for someone else, which is

[41:06] again why we want you to come and give us your comments. And I appreciate that. I appreciate the

[41:11] council member. I love that we got the rate to where it is. It was a double digit increase.

[41:16] Now we're down to, you know, 8.75 and I think that's a doable amount for

[41:20] for many people. I don't think $2 on average is unreasonable to ask for considering what it's going

[41:27] towards. I do think that this honestly should, we should probably look at doing something like this

[41:34] incrementally and not do as much of a amount, but we don't get a situation where now we have to ask

[41:38] for something that people don't know these other cities that see refer to, to only have

[41:43] two public tax increases over the last 40 years. One was proposed and we didn't get

[41:48] that going through, but to do two, that we know over the past 40 years, we really should

[41:52] probably be applying a little bit better and making sure we're adjusting the current relations

[41:56] that we don't get in a problem like these other cities have done and making sure that we're

[41:59] adjusting those needs. And so that is what I would like to look at going forward. So it's a

[42:05] manageable not for our citizens and our businesses, but we're just

[42:08] thinking about how we need to ask for a warning that we need to, but I don't

[42:13] like asking what I mean to, I think that we're asking for our

[42:17] future spot, we need to make sure that we're safe, and I want to say that it

[42:20] helped me a lot, we're seeking care of our community for some

[42:22] formulas because that is my most important job as a council member, but I

[42:27] appreciate the comments and we can ask the continue to come regardless of

[42:31] what the issue is because it does impact me as a council member, if I

[42:35] I don't care from you, and I just don't want the information I research myself, but I appreciate you coming in and hope that what you will continue to be involved and engage.

[42:45] Thank you.

[42:46] I'll just say a few words because I think my council thank you for your insight and your comments.

[42:53] I appreciate it to the public. Thank you.

[42:55] right? For coming out, expressing your views and your insights.

[43:02] You know, as I, I mean I've lived in the city a lot of time, and we're a city of services.

[43:08] And who provides the services is our fine employees. And I appreciate them so much because as I drive around the city, and whether it's walking through the library or busy public works,

[43:22] We're going to the right center or all of the different parts.

[43:26] I see not a city, I see a community and I appreciate the work that is done on behalf of the

[43:35] citizens.

[43:37] Our employees work hard every day.

[43:39] We run a lean, lean machine, and it doesn't grow.

[43:43] I trust the member.

[43:46] It's roughly set.

[43:46] I've looked at numbers.

[43:48] I've looked at the numbers.

[43:49] we went back and forth,

[43:53] it was a lot to see that our police and the

[43:59] fire stepped up and asked for help. You know, we went through this a few years ago,

[44:05] I think it's been more than a few years ago, we went through this process and

[44:08] the council went through it and said what is the most important and we rank

[44:12] everything. And then we stayed to a vote of the citizens. The citizens came back and

[44:18] I said, no, we don't want to cut the library,

[44:21] we don't want to cut the mark.

[44:24] And that's, I think it was overwhelmingly in favor of that.

[44:28] So I, again, appreciate the Council for your comments

[44:31] and for insight, your own city.

[44:36] We have expectations to meet.

[44:38] And this is one of them.

[44:40] And so, I think the next item is an issue

[44:45] You guys read your nice little bit there.

[44:52] See you soon.

[44:53] We were going to ask you guys.

[44:54] Yeah, I was going to be pointing to you guys

[44:56] to get rid of some of it.

[44:58] So, as you know, this was...

[45:00] Welcome to the Legislature, so it's for us to be in compliance. Procose property tax impacts,

[45:06] scheduled, tenet of budget, July 1, 2026, June 30, 2027.

[45:12] The federal city will consider an increase to its property tax rates from $0.009,380, $2.001,

[45:20] $020 to generate an additional $365,667. The following information is intended to provide

[45:28] by decision makers in the public with an explanation

[45:31] of how the city's operations would be affected

[45:34] if the proposed property tax increase is adopted.

[45:37] Pleasant Grove City's current property tax rate

[45:39] is 0.00938.

[45:42] Pleasant Grove City's current property tax revenue

[45:45] is $4,178,247.

[45:49] The proposed revenue tax change would be $4,543,914.

[45:55] The new property tax revenue to Pleasant Road City would be $365,667.

[46:03] The estimated increase to Pleasant Road City's property tax revenue is 8.75%.

[46:09] Estimated annual increase to a primary residence of $601,623 is $27.16.

[46:18] estimated annual increase to a commercial value at $600 and $1,623 is $49.38.

[46:27] The effective department is police. The proposed budget is $6,500 and $4,600 and $2.

[46:36] With out of the tax change, the budget would be $6,287,935, that budget change is $153,667.

[46:49] The impact of the tax increase, the police start department will hire one new police officer

[46:54] to provide funding for reserve and retention.

[46:57] Effective Department Fire, proposed budget $3,725,747, budget without tax change is $3,510,747.

[47:12] A budget change of $212,000. The impact of the tax increase the fire department will hire two new firefighters and provide funding for outfitting.

[47:23] total general fund change is 368,667 dollars.

[47:30] Please.

[47:33] All right.

[47:33] Let's set any motion to adjourn.

[47:36] So moved.

[47:37] Second.

[47:38] In motion by Councilmember Williams.

[47:40] I think I heard a second.

[47:41] We cast for the registrar.

[47:43] A little bit more.

[47:44] Aye.

[47:45] The adjourn.

City Council Special Meeting

Transcript