Roy asked its residents for a property tax increase last year. The city's notice put it at 27.96% above the prior year's budgeted revenue, or $1,423,978, which worked out to $108.10 a year on a $432,000 home. The hearing was on August 19 in the council chambers at 1900 West.
About two dozen residents spoke that night. Councilmember Sophie Paul remarked afterward that most of them had supported the increase, which surprised her. The council then voted four to one to adopt it at the 28% ceiling. Councilman Bryon Saxton cast the lone no.
Mayor Robert Dandoy had argued against the number all evening, pressing instead for the city manager's 8.77% and telling the council, according to the minutes, that there was no plan in the documents for how the larger sum would actually be spent.
Five residents sponsored a referendum against it in September. Their argument, printed in the city's own information pamphlet, was not that Roy needed no money but that the 28% "included nothing definite on who or where the money would be spent," and that the figure was set in June with no public discussion of the plan until the August hearing.
Weeks later, the Utah State Tax Commission threw the increase out anyway. Roy failed to present and post the county auditor's list of other proposed increases in Weber County, as required by Utah Code 59-2-919, and the city lost the entire $1,423,978.
This year Roy is back, asking for 55.45%, and Saxton is again the only member publicly opposed. It has raised property taxes three times in the past decade. Its population has sat near 39,000 for ten years, and its sales tax revenue has flatlined alongside it.
City Manager Matt Andrews wrote in his budget message that the money would cover $936,844 in cost-of-living shortfalls for this year and next, plus $1,870,901 in wage corrections, according to Utah News Dispatch. He told Utah News Dispatch the city faces "a pretty big mountain," and would rather ask for 18%. Bob Dandoy, who was mayor until January, expects the council to pass something and then return for another 8 to 15% next year.
Resident Diane Chaston has challenged the premise itself, noting that the salary survey justifying the raises was conducted in-house by a committee comprising the mayor, three of her administrators, and two council members. Homeowner Sandra Gibson put it more simply: 55% is "a big hit." Her neighbor, Linda Hainsworth, told the same reporter that she expects to lose her house if the largest version passes.
Roy is what Utah's property tax system looks like from the inside this summer. Over three legislative sessions, the state has made it more difficult for a city to raise property taxes and has declined to make it any less necessary. The 2026 Legislature killed a bill that would have capped local increases and passed a sixth straight income tax cut.
Paperwork became a veto
For most of forty years, the truth-in-taxation process worked roughly as it sounds. A city that wanted more revenue than it collected the year before advertised the fact, held a hearing, listened, and voted.
S.B. 29 in 2024 and S.B. 202 in 2025, both sponsored by Sen. Chris Wilson and both signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, added an enforcement step. The State Tax Commission is now directed to refuse certification when an entity failed to follow the procedure, with no discretion and no appeal.
The first year it applied, thirty-five entities lost roughly $50 million in proposed increases. FOX 13 put the count at 39 and about $80 million; the commission then received updated information and reinstated four, the Alpine and Uintah school districts and the cities of Springville and Ivins. Granite School District lost $17.8 million. Kaysville lost $1.8 million. The town of Leamington in Millard County lost $290. In prior years, the commission had denied one or two entities annually.
Granite's violation is the one worth understanding. The district told KUTV that its hearing and regular board meeting fell on the same evening, and it printed both agendas on a single sheet of paper instead of two. That cost it $17.8 million. Granite called the technicality draconian and noted that the new law leaves the commission no discretion and no appeal.
The district appealed anyway, and the court upheld the denial. Superintendent Ben Horsley had told KUTV in July that the money mattered because "we only have one revenue source, and that's property taxes." Instead of the increase, Granite cut $850,000 from district administration and froze hiring for non-school positions.
North Ogden, which had already scaled its request down from $475,000 to $136,000, also tried to appeal. Its city attorney said the commission's first answer was that no appeal existed.
Draper's violation was the same one that cost Roy. Mayor Troy Walker, who was then president of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, told FOX 13 that the city noticed its hearing correctly and took public input, but failed to put up the one slide the statute requires showing what every other taxing entity in Salt Lake County was doing. Draper lost $935,965 it had earmarked for a fire truck and instead took the money from emergency reserves.
Jason Gardner, deputy director of the tax commission, explained why nobody got a warning. The new language, he said, is that the commission "shall not certify a tax rate if the requirement is not met." The most common trip-up, in other words, was failing to tell taxpayers what everyone else was asking them for.
The Legislature tightened again, then blinked
H.B. 236, sponsored by Rep. Karen Peterson and carried in the Senate by Sen. Daniel McCay, drew no votes against it in either chamber. Gov. Cox signed it on March 23, one of 87 bills that day, and it took effect May 6.
A city proposing an increase must now announce it out loud, on its own agenda item, at the meeting where the tentative budget first appears. It must announce it again between May 1 and June 13 with a dollar figure and a purpose attached. It must adopt an interim budget containing a property tax impact schedule that, department by department, explains what the money buys and what happens without it. And it must park the entire proposed amount in a restricted account, untouchable until a final budget passes.
At a West Valley City study meeting on May 12, Mayor Karen Lang stated that an executive or budget officer intended to state in the meeting that the tentative budget included a proposed tax rate increase. Finance Director Jim Welch then stated that it did, and presented the impact schedule. The mayor stated that the city intended to state the dollar amount, the purpose, and the approximate percentage.
Welch then stated that it was about $1,907,662, roughly 5%, for operations and employee compensation, including nine new firefighter positions. Each of those steps is its own numbered agenda item. Welch told the council that under the new law, any agenda item touching the budget requires staff to read the property tax impact statement aloud.
River Heights in Cache County posted the whole sequence to its website: three numbered resolutions, an impact schedule, and two versions of its budget, one with the increase and one without. A resident can now read exactly what the city says it loses if the answer is no. River Heights has reason to be careful. The commission voided its $33,876 increase last year.
The choreography shows up on agendas too. When the Woods Cross council met on June 12, its published agenda walked through the statute step by step: notice that the budget officer intended to state in the meeting that the tentative budget included a proposed increase, presentation of the property tax impact schedule, a resolution adopting that schedule, a separate hearing to adopt the interim budget, and finally a resolution setting the truth-in-taxation hearing for August 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Buried at the end of the same bill is Subsection 12. If the commission finds that a city proposing an increase for the year beginning July 1, 2026, missed those new notice requirements, the mandatory denial does not apply. The commission instead sends a warning letter and explains that the same mistake next year will cost the city money.
The exemption is narrow. It covers only the two new notice steps. Every older requirement still carries automatic denial: hearings beginning at or after 6 p.m., no unrelated business on the agenda, no scheduling against an overlapping entity in the same county, advertisement running at least fourteen days out. The commission has until September 15 to decide. Nobody yet knows who is clean.
What the Legislature did not do was cap anything. S.B. 97, McCay's own bill, set a number. As introduced, no taxing entity could adopt a final budget with more than 5% in additional property tax revenue over the prior year, excluding new growth. Every large request in this article would have been illegal under that version.
The Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee had recommended the bill, with 10 for and 4 against. It was rewritten four times and then failed on the Senate floor on March 3, by a vote of 14 to 15. It never reached the House. The other property tax bills that session failed too. The income tax rate dropped to 4.45% instead, at a cost of $101 million to the state and a benefit of roughly $40 a year to a typical family.
The Utah House's 2026 priorities page promises, under the heading "Reining in Property Tax," to reduce property taxes for homeowners. Further down the same page, it notes that Utahns are feeling pressure from a flurry of recent increases by cities, counties, and school districts, and that such hikes should be a last resort.
Why the need does not go away
Utah's property tax is revenue-driven. As Utah County explains it, an entity collects the same amount it collected last year from existing property. When values rise, the county ratchets the rate down to keep the total flat. New money arrives only from new construction, or from a hearing.
A city that never holds one is not holding its taxes steady. It is absorbing inflation against a rate that falls every year.
Eagle Mountain has documented this better than anyone in the state, on its own website. The city's truth-in-taxation page shows its certified levy dropping from 0.001781 in 1997 to 0.000530 today while the population more than tripled. Its last increase through this process was in 2010. The proposed rate is 0.001700, which, on average, means a $488,000 home moves the city's share from $142.25 to $456.28 a year.
The city is unusually direct about where that goes. Every dollar of Eagle Mountain property tax funds public safety, and the $9,798,139 generated by the new rate matches its Utah County Sheriff's Office contract exactly: $8,290,200 for the existing agreement and $1,507,939 for a sergeant and six deputies. The hearing is August 6 at 6 p.m., in person or on Zoom.
Bountiful Mayor Kate Bradshaw, who is now president of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, told KSL that cities run mainly on sales and property taxes, that the state sets sales tax rates, and that collections fall when residents feel squeezed. Cities deliver what she called "mostly frontline services."
The invoices are the same everywhere. Salt Lake City published its own: a traffic signal that cost $250,000 in 2020 now runs past $500,000; asphalt has gone from roughly $44 per ton to $64 per ton; firefighter gear costs nearly $900 more per person; health premiums rose 10% this year. Davis County's version runs through different departments, with public safety salaries up $7.12 million since 2020, the county attorney's office up $3.08 million, and inmate medical care up $2.6 million.
Who is asking, and when
Weber County is not raising its own taxes. The treasurer says so plainly: no increase in 2025, none proposed for 2026. Seven entities inside the county are asking anyway, and the treasurer publishes their hearings. North View Fire District on August 3. South Ogden, Washington Terrace, Harrisville and North Ogden on August 4. Hooper on August 6. Roy on August 11. Weber Basin Water on August 24.
Ogden Valley, the new city seeking the largest percentage increase in Utah, does not appear on that list. Its 506% would take the bill on a $1.22 million home, the average there, from $106.90 to $647.43 a year. It is in court with the tax commission, which says the city may not levy at all: a commission rule requires a taxing entity to exist as of January 1, and the lieutenant governor's office issued Ogden Valley's certificate of incorporation on January 2.
The commission calls that date the linchpin of Utah's entire property tax calendar, grounded in the state constitution, and warns that bending it would let other entities argue the same. Judge Catherine Conklin has let the city proceed for now, finding it likely to prevail on its argument that a rule cannot reach beyond statute.
Washington County has only two proposals countywide, and published the notice itself. Hildale hears August 5 at 320 E Newel Ave. Toquerville hears August 11 at 212 N Toquer Blvd.
In Salt Lake County, the largest increase already happened. The county noticed 19.63% in December, which would have generated $48.9 million and added $87.38 a year to the bill on a $638,000 home. After a hearing that ran past three hours, the council settled lower. The county now describes the result as roughly 14.65%, under $6 a month, and notes that it accounts for about 17 % of a typical resident's total bill.
The cities come next. The county auditor's combined notice of proposed tax increases, mailed with the valuation notices in late July, carries more than a dozen entities this year, among them Salt Lake City, South Salt Lake, Taylorsville, West Valley City, West Jordan, Murray, Draper, Midvale's public safety levy, two Herriman service areas, the Town of Alta, Cottonwood Heights, and both the Granite and Canyons school districts. West Valley City, the state's second largest, hears at 6:30 p.m. on August 11 at 3600 Constitution Blvd. Its request is modest in proportion and large in dollars: about $1.9 million, or roughly 5%. Cottonwood Heights hears the same evening at 6 p.m. It went unmentioned in the statewide coverage of this cycle.
Salt Lake City is the largest single figure among Utah cities. Its council approved 12.5% in June, which the city calculates to be $9.87 per month on a $624,000 home. The $13.5 million is committed in advance, most of it to capital projects and the fire department, with smaller amounts for justice court staffing, wildland fire mitigation, fleet maintenance, youth programming and park lighting. The hearing is August 11.
Davis County residents are getting the sequence in reverse. The county spent last fall making the case for 29.97%, $12.7 million, or $8.37 a month, on the grounds that it had not raised general operations since 2017 while inflation ran 32% and federal pandemic money ran out. Now the cities are asking. Woods Cross hears on August 4, and its council also had to receive and record its sentiment on a separate increase proposed by the South Davis Metro Fire Service Area. Clearfield, Clinton, Kaysville, West Point and Woods Cross were all denied their increases last year.
School districts sit on the largest sums and hold hearings in the same window. Granite is back asking for $21.7 million, more than any city in the state. Canyons wants about $6.8 million, Provo about $3.1 million, Juab about $1.1 million, North Sanpete $750,000.
How cities are responding
Ogden Valley officials have said that if the courts go against them, they will pursue a transportation utility fee and cut elsewhere. Salt Lake City's mayor weighed both a transportation utility fee and a ticket tax on events at government-owned venues before settling on property tax, and both remain live options there.
A utility fee requires no truth-in-taxation hearing. No impact schedule, no restricted account, no September 15 deadline at the tax commission. It arrives on the same bill as the water.
Salt Lake City residents are already seeing what that costs. Mendenhall told her council that a typical single-family home with modest water use would pay a little more than $32 a month due to higher utility, waste, and recycling rates. The property tax increase that dominated the coverage is $9.87.
If the state keeps making the hearing route harder while leaving the underlying gap in place, it appears cities will take the route that has no hearing.
Checking your own
The Notice of Property Valuation and Tax Change arrives from your county in late July. It lists every taxing entity that touches your address, along with the date, time, and place of any hearing. That notice governs, not any news account including this one.
State law requires that each hearing start at or after 6 p.m. and allow attendance in person or remotely. Each entity has to state the dollar amount it wants and explain what it buys. Anyone who wants to speak gets a reasonable opportunity. Nothing is final until the governing body votes, and the tax commission has until September 15 to certify the result or refuse to do so.
In Salt Lake County, a group led by Goud Maragani, a former Republican candidate for county clerk, was cleared in January to gather roughly 45,000 signatures for a referendum on the county's increase. That is the other option, and it is considerably harder than showing up in August.
Article edited by Clint Betts. What are we missing? What did this piece get wrong? Email the editor at clint@utahn.com.
Every figure here comes from the taxing entity's own notice, budget page or council record, or from a county officer, and is linked at first use; where no primary document was available, the reporting is credited to the outlet that obtained it.
