Increasing your taxes without notice?
Ogden School District is asking voters to vote in favor of a 29% property tax increase during a special election on June 25, 2013. According to a resolution posted on the School District website, this tax rate increase, from 0.001240 to 0.001603 per dollar, is to “fund the repair, maintenance, and operation of the Ben Lomond High School and Ogden High School swimming pools.”
Education is a hot topic in Utah. Each election year it is near the top of the list of issues voters are concerned about. One of their biggest concerns is how education is funded.
The Utah State Legislature appropriated $2,395,418,730 in state funding for the current fiscal year. In addition to state funds, Utah received over $4.6 million in federal funding and $1.7 billion in local school board taxes.
Each local school district is given the authority to levy taxes to pay for education. Four specific taxes fall under the jurisdiction of each school board, Basic School, Capital Local, Voted Local, and Board Local taxes. Additionally, bond payments could be included in the total amount of local school taxes. According to the Utah Tax Commission website, Weber School District collected over $46.6 million in property taxes for the 2012 fiscal year. Ogden School District collected $24.4 million.
While citizens may voice opinions about these taxes, only voter local levy taxes are placed on the election ballot. According to the Utah State Lieutenant Governor’s Office, 76,000 voters in Weber County participated in the 2012 Election. That is only 32% of the county’s population. During municipal election years that number drops to under 20%.
During non-presidential election years it is not uncommon for school board taxes, and school bonds, to be placed on the ballot. Special elections are also commonly held for tax increase purposes. Unfortunately that means less than a quarter of the population is voting on property tax increases that affect every property owner in the county.
Additionally, according to Utah Code, school boards can increase voter local levy taxes every year after they have been voted on for five years without further announcement to the public. “A vote in favor of this tax means that (name of the school district) may increase revenue from this property tax without advertising the increase for the next five years.” (Utah Code 53A-17a-133) This notice has been included in the published resolution on the Ogden School District website.
The only way to change a voter local levy tax is for 10% of the voters that participated in the last general election to sign a petition for the issue to be included on the ballot.
