With a little more than two weeks left in the Utah Legislative session, Heber City Manager Matt Brower appeared before the City Council on Tuesday to provide an update on a handful of bills the city is tracking, including three bills that would have implications on city property taxes.  The fir st of these bills is Senate Bill 97, sponsored by Republican Sen. Daniel McCay, who represents Salt Lake County.  The bill would disallow taxing entities to deposit property tax revenue into a reserve fund for capital improvement projects.  Brower said Heber City has done so in the past to pay for projects like Heritage Farms Parkway, the road that connects U.S. 40 north of Heber City to Center Street.  The bill would also prohibit a taxing entity from budgeting an amount of ad valorem tax revenue that exceeds 5% of last year’s property tax budgeted revenue.  Ad valorem taxes, including sales and property taxes, are those calculated based on the assessed value of a transaction or property. Essentially, S.B. 97 would place a 5% cap on how much a city can raise its property tax rate annually. According to Brower, Heber City has increased its property tax rate five times in the last two decades: a 4.1% increase in 2011, 32.3% in 2015, 10% in 2022, 8% in 2024 and 9.3% in 2025.  “If this bill passes with the existing language, you would see that none of those increases other than in 2011 would have been permissible,” he said. Brower later explained that if the bill passed, Heber City would have to consider making “smaller, more frequent changes to the property tax rate, perhaps even annual increases to offset inflationary impacts to the general fund budget.” Heber City Public Information Officer Ryan Bunnell explained the 32.3% property tax increase in 2015 was a result of the city not raising its property tax rate on a regular basis. “City Council learned this lesson during that period and has committed to never letting that happen again,” he said.  In Bunnell’s opinion, “If you keep your budget in check, then there should be no reasonable need to increase more than 5% annually.” Although Heber City raised its property tax rate by more than 5% in both 2024 and 2025, Bunnell said that “Heber City runs a tight ship and maintains a balanced budget, so I don’t think we have much to worry about.” Midway is also watching S.B. 97. City Planner Katie Villani said that Midway does not frequently raise taxes and, if approved, Midway may have to raise taxes in small increments like Heber City would.  “It’s basically going to work against small cities and places who don’t routinely raise their taxes, and I think the result would be that people would go through truth in taxation more frequently, and maybe have smaller increases more frequently,” she said. Brower said S.B. 97 is one of many bills the state Legislature is looking at in response to growing pressure to restrict local governments’ ability to approve large property tax increases.  “There is, quite frankly, a national emphasis to do away with property tax,” he added, pointing to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political platform of reducing property taxes, as an example.  Heber City is also tracking two bills that would change the timelines of tax increase notifications.  Typically, Heber City begins its budget process by identifying priorities for the upcoming fiscal year during the annual City Council retreat in January. Then, staff prepares a budget and presents it to the City Council in a series of budget workshops held in late April and early May. Heber City holds a public hearing for the budget in early June, with the budget adopted later that month. House Bill 365, sponsored by Republican Rep. Thomas Peterson, who represents Box Elder and Cache counties, would require taxing entities to provide public notice of their intent to increase a certified tax rate on or by April 1. The notice would also be required to include the approximate dollar amount of ad valorem tax revenue the city would gain as a result of the increase and the revenue’s purpose.  Because Heber City does not finalize the decision to increase the certified tax rate until early June, Brower compared the April 1 deadline to “putting the cart before the horse.” Meanwhile, H.B. 236, sponsored by Republican Rep. Karen Peterson, who represents Davis County, would move that notification window to May 1 through June 8. Notably, the bill would also require taxing entities intending to raise a certified tax rate to create two budgets for the upcoming fiscal year by June 30. One budget would include the tax revenue that would result from the increase, while the other budget would not. Brower said creating two budgets instead of one would “increase the work exponentially for (city) staff.” Heber City’s lobbyist is Dave Stewart, and representatives from the city are attending Utah League of Cities and Towns Legislative Policy Committee meetings to monitor and lobby for or against bills that would impact Heber City, Brower explained.  The general Legislative session ends on March 6. The post Heber City officials eye bills that could impact property tax rate increases appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less