Riverdale, Roy, South Ogden, Harrisville, North Ogden leaders OK tax hikes
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- Numerous Riverdale residents spoke at a truth-in-taxation hearing held on a proposed property tax hike in the city on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022.
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- Numerous Roy residents spoke at a truth-in-taxation hearing held on a proposed property tax hike in the city on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022.
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- Numerous Riverdale residents spoke at a truth-in-taxation hearing held on a proposed property tax hike in the city on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022.
RIVERDALE — Taxes will be going up in Riverdale, Roy, South Ogden, Harrisville and North Ogden.
In separate meetings on Tuesday, leaders in each city approved the respective 2023 budgets for the locales, which contain property tax hikes ranging from around 9% in South Ogden to a high of around 166% in Harrisville.
Officials in many locales across Weber County and the state have been wrestling with proposed property tax hikes as they deal with inflation, rising fuel costs and a desire to boost the pay of workers. The issue came to a head in the five Weber County locales on Tuesday, with Ogden School District officials to consider a property tax hike at a meeting on Thursday.
In Riverdale, the City Council approved an increase that’ll bolster property tax collections for 2023 by around 95%, from the $791,846 the city would be allowed to collect without special action to $1.54 million. Even that, though, isn’t necessarily enough to meet all the city’s needs given the recent departure from the city of furniture store RC Willey, which had generated around $450,000 a year in sales tax revenue for Riverdale, according to Steve Brooks, the city administrator.
“We’re still in the hole, but we didn’t want to push it further than that,” he said Wednesday.
Indeed, at a special public hearing Tuesday that preceded the vote, many Riverdale residents expressed alarm over tax hikes, particularly in light of inflation and the parallel tax hike moves among many entities. Weber School District officials approved a tax hike on Aug. 3, which will impact property owners in Riverdale and the other locales it serves in Weber County, all of them but Ogden.
“If it was just Riverdale taxes going up, I could handle it. It’s everything. Everything’s going up. I’m in a world of hurt,” said one woman at the Riverdale gathering.
Riverdale officials need the extra funds to hire more police and firefighters and to bolster the pay of other employees to hold onto them. At any rate, officials axed $100,000 from the 2023 budget that was to be used to buy new furniture for the Riverdale municipal building and they reversed earlier pay hikes for the City Council and mayor.
Officials in Roy also held a public hearing on the proposed tax hike there, which originally totaled 15%, enough to boost collections for 2023 from around $3.93 million to $4.6 million. Most of the speakers blasted the increase, and officials ultimately scaled it back, approving a 10% hike, which will generate perhaps $400,000 more instead of the originally proposed $600,000.
Among those speaking out were seniors on fixed incomes, as at many of the other hearings and meetings in other locales on tax hikes. “I hope you all will keep senior citizens in your thoughts,” one woman said at the Roy hearing.
As in Riverdale, others said that with inflation, Roy’s tax hike proposal comes at a bad time. “It’s not the time to raise taxes. It needs to be delayed,” said one speaker.
Several in Roy suggested cutting the proposal from the 2023 budget to hire an economic development director, a move aimed at helping bring in more businesses, thus bolstering the city’s tax base and its ability to generate sales tax revenue. Ultimately, the post remained in the spending plan, though the property tax hike — meant to create money needed to hire more police and fire fighters — was trimmed back.
Officials in Harrisville had been mulling the largest property tax hike in Weber County in relative terms, 166%, and they approved it, along with the 2023 budget, on Tuesday. The increase will bolster tax collections to $941,570, up from the $354,030 that would otherwise be allowable without boosting taxes.
The truth-in-taxation hearing on the Harrisville proposal was Aug. 2, drawing a standing-room-only crowd, many of those present questioning the increase. At Tuesday’s regular City Council meeting, though, when the tax hike was formally approved, only a handful showed up, said Mayor Michelle Tait.
“It was a great discussion, a great meeting,” Tait said. Truth-in-taxation hearings — the gatherings on Tuesday in Roy and Riverdale — are mandated by law when an entity is proposing to boost taxes above what state law would otherwise allow.
Harrisville officials sought the increase, the first since 2013, to keep pace with demand for services as the city grows. Nine new developments are planned or proposed in Harrisville and that requires more planning officials, inspectors and others.
“All the numbers were there,” Tait said, citing the research that demonstrated the import of a tax hike. “It wasn’t just guessing, wondering what if.”
In fact, foregoing an increase would have been tough on the city, said Jennie Knight, the city administrator. Harrisville “would’ve been in a world of hurt” without the hike, she said.
Going forward, Tait said she’d favor more regular consideration of smaller tax hikes to generate the funds the city needs, a strategy South Ogden officials follow, rather than less-frequent but larger increases.
Separately, the Harrisville City Council also approved a measure calling for a special election in November on a proposal to issue $6 million in bonds to build a recreation facility. The bond, if the question makes it to the ballot and is approved by voters, would also boost property taxes, on top of the increase approved Tuesday.
In North Ogden, the City Council approved a 24.5% increase in property taxes, which will result in property tax collections of around $2.34 million for 2023, up $430,000 to $460,000 from what the city would otherwise be able to collect. The city held a truth-in-taxation hearing on Aug. 9, drawing comments from around 30, most of them critical of boosting taxes.
In South Ogden, the City Council approved a 9% property tax hike, boosting collections in 2023 to $4.18 million, up from the $3.83 million the city would otherwise be able to collect. The city held a truth-in-taxation hearing on Aug. 2, generating a tamer response than in other Weber County locales.
Officials from Ogden, the Weber School District and the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District had earlier approved tax hikes.
The North View Fire District, which serves North Ogden, Pleasant View and Harrisville, is also proposing a property tax hike, focus of a truth-in-taxation hearing on Aug. 23.