Rich County Budget Hearing

Bobbie Bicknell Coray, Reporter
Rich Civic Times

RANDOLPH, Utah.  December 4, 2019.    The tax increase this year for the Sanitation Department and garbage collection not take care of the need.  They restructured the way nightly rentals were charged and expected a $90,000 increase in revenue , but have not seen the increase yet.  The Commission wanted to get to $600,000.  In the past the county was charging by the dump and was losing money.  But now dump are being replaced by cans which may decrease the revenue.  The county bought a new truck this year for $360,000. 

Commissioner Bill Cox said that unfortunately new growth doesn’t bring more money to the county.  The new tax structure just decreases the overall tax rate. For example the new solar farm will pay $175,000 – $200,000 in taxes but that will not go to the County.  The tax structure was changed so that  counties cannot take advantage of new growth.  There is a way to circumvent this, the County needs to add those taxes into the budget and then do a “truth in taxation” public hearing.  Elected officials are reluctant to do this because people think this means their taxes will go up and they get angry even though it brings new outside revenue into the County.  However, it can be explained as a way to avoid higher taxes in the future.

The Commissioners agree that the hardest part of the job is balancing budget with needs. Employee wages are low, which makes it hard competing for quality people who can go elsewhere.  EMT are overburdened and new ones not coming on because the commitment is at least three times a day on the ambulance which in summer is running 24/7.

The Commissioners approved the 2020 budget.