Cc - public_hearing

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Are we already online? OK. We're happy for whoever comes. All right, it is 6 o'clock, and so we will get started with our specific Truth in Taxation City Council meeting this August 13, 2026. We will start with a prayer thought identification, and I will give that, Mayor Bott, and then I've invited Councilmember Troxell to lead some of the Pledge of Allegiance. Following that, we have the agenda that is specific that needs to be read word for word per Utah code. And then we will open up a public hearing. And once everyone has had a chance to publicly comment, we will close the public hearing. And then unlike other years, because of the new law that's in place, there's an action item, which hasn't been done in the past because that hasn't ever been required. But with the new code and the new law, there's an action item. The action item will be a motion to approve the things that I'm reading, just the impact statement, not the taxes or whatever the budget. It will not be to approve the budget. The budget will come before the city council on August 20th, which is in one week. All right. I will open us with prayer. Our Father in heaven, we are thankful this evening to be gathered together as a city council to receive public comment. We're thankful for the rain and the tender mercy that we've received over the last couple days and look forward anxiously with more that may be coming. And we pray that thou may bless us with that to water our parched earth, to give relief to the fires that are about us and the men and women who are anxiously engaged in fighting those blazes. We are thankful for this opportunity to represent our citizens and to be here as a city council. Please bless us with wisdom. And with grace, we ask for thy spirit to be here in attendance. And these things we pray for in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Council Member Troxell.

We all rise and repeat with me.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Pursuant to Utah Code, a public hearing regarding Brigham City's intention to levy a property tax rate that exceeds the certified property tax rate, the proposed rate will generate approximately $184,843 in additional revenue. This represents a 4.81% increase over last year's property tax budgeted revenue, excluding new growth. The increase is needed to help cover rising costs in the general fund, including the transition from a contracted city attorney to a full-time city attorney and a needed increase in temporary staffing hours in the Parks Department to allow for improved maintenance of the city's park system. This agenda item is intended to demonstrate compliance with 59-2-919-4A&I and 59-2-924-8B. by providing a property tax impact schedule as attached to this agenda. Pursuant to 59-2-919-4ai and 592-9248b, the proposed tax rate increase is summarized as follows. Revenue impact. Estimated additional property tax revenue $184,843. Percentage increase in total property tax revenue, 4.81%. Taxpayer impact. Average residential property based at $400,000. The prior year paid $382.80. The proposed tax would be $401.28. The annual increase is $18.48. Percentage increase is 4.81%. The average commercial property valued at $1.2 million the prior year was $2,088. The proposed tax will be $2,188.80. The annual increase will be $100.80. The percentage increase is again 4.81%. The departmental budget and operational impact, the proposed tax rate will increase the impact, will impact the following departments. The mayor's office, the budgeted impact of $129,843. This change is attributed to personnel costs associated with transitioning from a contracted attorney to a full-time city attorney position, including wages and benefits that were not previously provided under the contract agreement. The operational impact, the approval of the proposed tax rate increase will allow the city to maintain consistent legal services following the anticipated conclusion of the current contract. While the city has greatly benefited from a highly effective contracted attorney, the transition to a full-time city attorney is intended to provide dedicated on-site legal support and ensure continuity of services moving forward. A full-time attorney will offer increased day-to-day availability, more direct integration with city staff and operations, and the ability to provide timely review of contracts, ordinances, and policies. This position will also support ongoing legal needs related to economic development, personnel matters, and regulatory compliance. Without the proposed increase, the city would need to secure alternative contracted legal services, which may result Invariability in availability, higher hourly costs over time, or reduced consistency depending on the provider. The Parks Department. Budget impact, $55,000. This change is due to increased temporary wage costs to address seasonal staffing needs and rising service demands. The operational impact, approval of the proposed tax rate, will allow the department to enhance service levels by adding temporary staff to better maintain the city's park system. This includes improved mowing schedules, landscaping, cleanliness, and overall park appearance. Additional staffing will help the department keep pace with increased usage and expectations as the city continues to grow. Without the proposed increase, the department would likely continue to fall behind on routine maintenance and upkeep resulting in declining park conditions, reduce aesthetic quality, and potential impact to public use and community satisfaction. The final budget, including the proposed tax increase, will be adopted at the August 20, 2026 City Council meeting. Council, that is the impact statement required to read. We can now have a motion to open up.

You're going to get a presentation by Tom before you do that.

Yeah. We'll have a motion to open up a public hearing following the budget presentation by our city economic development director, who was previously our financial director, Tom Cotter. And we'll invite him.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. As I was preparing this today and working with Jeff, I realized so now we've entered the eighth month of the budget process for this year. The budget process starts clear back in December and January. As we meet together as department heads with the mayor's staff and go through the budgets and we go through various other things in the budget, we look at facilities, we look at fleet, capital projects, personnel, Uh, all those things are looked at in great detail. And then we also go through those. And then in may, uh, mayor Bach presented his tentative budget to the city council. And in may, when mayor bought presented his budget in that budget, he publicly announced, and we noticed that through the new requirements that there was going to be a tax increase included in his budget. And at that point, the tax increase was 12.93%. The budget, as Mayor Bott just talked about, the public hearing tonight is for 4.81%. So after Mayor Bott presented in May, the city council has work sessions that the staff come in and address various topics with the council that the council is asked to learn about, hear about. including the things that we will again discuss a little bit tonight, the parts and the changes in the mayor's office. The interim budget is then passed in June. The city has had a longstanding practice that now the state has recognized that, hey, that's actually a best practice. If the city restricted any funds associated with a tax increase, we restricted those. We're not allowed to use them until the final budget is adopted contingent on the tax. process going through the truth and taxation the state has actually now put that into a requirement for everyone so that speaks to the the transparency and openness that that previous financial directors have had previous councils have had previous mayors have had that we've always been very transparent and open about what was happening with the city um so we'll go through so When we talk about truth in taxation, Utah is an interesting state. It's very well managed. It has some, when it comes to property tax, you're going to hear the words truth in taxation. I can't even say them. What that is regarding to, really, if an entity is wanting to adopt a tax rate higher than its certified tax rate, It then goes through this process, and the process is called truth and taxation. I hear a lot of times people talk about, hey, the assessor went and increased my property, and you get a windfall from that. How the certified tax rate works, it is to stop that from happening. What the certified tax rate does, and the certified tax rate is set by the county auditor in conjunction with the Utah State Tax Commission. So what they do is they go and look inside of a geographic boundary, inside of Brigham City's limits. And they go and look and say, all right, Brigham City, last year you received $3 million in property taxes. You received it from these properties at this value. So when it comes to the next year, the current year, it says, all right, Brigham City, you're entitled for that same $3 million you got the year before. We're gonna go look at those properties, the same properties. We're gonna exclude new growth. We're not even gonna look at that. We're gonna say, hey, those properties that existed last year, what happened to their value? And so if the value goes up as a whole in Brigham City, the rate will float down. If the values actually go down, then the rate's gonna float up. And it's all in the effort to stop the whole, like, hey, you just don't get an automatic increase if there's been a reappraisal of values. But what ends up happening is a lot of times, so it's that pie argument, not argument, but the pie understanding on the screen is not everything happens within a vacuum. So Brigham City as a whole, the rate this year, the certified tax rate actually floated up, meaning that property values came down in Brigham City's whole pie. But if your property is outpacing, or if your property value went up, you now get a bigger chunk of the pie. So that is what we a lot of times see. So we put on the example that we share is if the city's average property increased 10% in value, but your home went up 18%, you're now going to carry a larger share of the overall tax burden. because the certified tax rate's gonna account for 10% to keep you there, but you're outpacing that at 18%, so you're gonna pick up a bigger piece of the pie just in how it all works. So there are a lot of times that people will feel, and people rightfully feel this, is that, hey, I got a giant reappraisal, my value went up, and now I'm getting hammered. And a lot of that is because they're flat out outpacing the other properties in the city. And so that will happen to them The County goes through, they're supposed to reappraise parcels, um, on a five year basis where, I mean, they're constantly going through and looking at them, but they're required on five years to actually do a physical review of the parcel and what has happened there. Um, so the next thing I wanted to talk about, well, one of the things I guess we can just talk about really quickly and back to this is so Brigham city's value property changed, um, 99.2 million. 13.2 of that was just through reappraisal without contribute to reappraisal, but the rest was all due to new growth, $86 million. We talked about, Hey, they're going to go look at the properties that existed. So there's $86 million of new growth that didn't exist from the previous years. Um, so everyone should have received one of these wonderful notices from the County auditor's office. Um, so this shows you what the impact is. to your specific parcel. So this is a parcel that the city owns, and so I just blew it up for this presentation tonight. So on there, it's gonna list all of the taxing entities that levy a tax on your business, your home, your property, whatever it may be. So in this case, there's the school district, the county, Bear River Water, Mosquito Abatement. So all of those entities, If they are going to exceed their certified tax rate, they're required to hold their own public hearings. So tonight is just regarding Brigham City's. So Brigham City, when the notice went out off to the side here, before I blew the box up, you can see off to the side, you can't see, oh, you can't see my little pointer. So right here is where it said, hey, Brigham City is proposing a tax increase and they are going to have a meeting on August 13th at 6 p.m. And so everyone that has a parcel located in Brigham City should have received one of these notices. And then at the big circle, 65% of your tax dollars, your property tax dollars, are going to the school district. 17% are flowing to the city, 14% to the county, and 2% end up with the Water Conservancy District and Mosquito Abatement. And so mayor bought red, the wonderful statement that is required. Uh, but we just want to hammer it again to meet the compliance that. So tonight's purpose is to communicate the city's intention is to levy a property tax rate that exceeds the certified property tax rate. The proposed rate will be approximately 184,000, $143. The city is proposing to budget $4,031,299 in property tax revenue for the fiscal year 26-27. This represents a 4.81% increase over last year's property budgeted revenue, excluding new growth. That's one of also the important parts when we talk about the certified tax rate. It is all revenue driven. So as we talked about here, the certified tax rate for Brigham City actually floated up this year. That is not a tax increase. And it's just the same way. If the certified tax rate had floated down, that is not a tax decrease. Because you're still getting the same $3 million in our example previously. The only time anyone can claim a property tax decrease is if they were to take less than the certified tax rate. And in Utah, the reason we're here again is because Brigham City is saying we want to take more than our certified tax rate. We want to take a rate that's higher than that. That is a tax increase. Because we're going through a tax increase, there are certain parameters to the truth in taxation process that you've got to cover. You've got to be open. You've got to be transparent. And you have to meet all of the posting requirements. There are things that Jeff and his staff this year have done an awesome job. There have been new requirements thrown at them. and they've tackled them and handled them amazingly well. The final budget, as Mayor Bott talked about, will actually be adopted next week on August 20th. And for that, there will also be another public hearing associated with that final adoption. All right, so now we're going to talk. Mayor Bott already stole my thunder. He read it all. I know, it's fine. So I'll go quick. Parks Department, we talked about it. So the budget impact is $55,000. When mayor bought presented in may, we were at $110,000. The city council has funded the other half of this through not increasing property taxes. So as we've gone through the work sessions that there are things we, we became able to adjust and shift and look at different things. So now what is left is we're asking for an additional $55,000 to cover those seasonal hour increase the additional 2,900 hours. more or less. And really you can see why. I put down here a picture from one of our parks earlier this summer. There is just becoming more and more parks that have needed maintenance. There's just more of it. We've added three new properties through the previous fiscal year. There's just a lot as we go through getting irrigation preparation and the repairs that are associated with it. Um, so that's kind of the whole itch. The reason that staff has presented to council while canceled council has kept it in their budget and has felt that we wanted to come and ask for a tax increase. The additional item was inside the mayor's office. Um, we've had a contract with city attorney for the last couple of years has done an amazing job. The city has been very fortunate to have them. to have her, she's sitting up there, so there's no need for me to pretend. I don't know who it is. The city has been very fortunate to have Nicole, uh, coddle do our, our legal work and help the city. I don't even know. I can, I can quantify it. Um, it is a much larger number than Nicole has saved the city than the budget impact of going to a full time attorney. And it's also much larger than what her contract was for. Um, Nicole offered the city of very city friendly contract, uh, for the previous couple of years, that contract has now come to its conclusion. Uh, so we've looked around and we said, it's time for the city to, for, to look at, to establish more of a long-term legal services model. Um, the city has been very fortunate. through all of our previous city attorneys that we've been associated with, even somebody from man had filled in Thorne, Jeff Thorne, Kirk Morgan, Mike Christiansen, all have provided excellent legal service to the city on a contract basis. But as we continue to grow, we just are facing more and more need for an attorney, an in-house attorney. And we would love to have someone of Nicole's abilities, temperament, all that she is to be there for us. And those people cost a significant amount of monies. When you look at what the city does, the city handles everything that a municipality can do. We have power, EMS, police, a cemetery, parks, rec. The list goes on and on, an airport. When you think about the stuff that the city attorney is going to be handling, it's, it's, it's a ginormous breadth of knowledge that is needed. Um, so a lot of times what we see is city attorneys, maybe in other cities that they don't receive, maybe their wage, people think, I mean, you're really going to pay the attorney a lot. Well, they don't understand when they go and look at those other cities. Yeah. So those other cities are paying their attorneys 150,000, $120,000. but they are contracting out a ginormous amount of legal services in addition to having an in-house attorney. So as we've met and we've talked to staff, as we've talked to the council, the thing that's being presented tonight is we feel that in order to continue moving the city forward in the way that Nicole has introduced to us and has taught us, I shouldn't say us, has taught me, that we just need. We need people who know what they're doing. And because of the rapid nature of the Brigham City is growing, we need those people to come in and have that skill set with them. So really quickly, on to the next thing. So this is what, it's the Avenger slide. So these are actual homes inside of Brigham City. We changed the names to protect the guilty. full transparency. I'm Hulk. That is my home. I do have an anger issue. So maybe that's why I'm Hulk. I don't have an anger issue. Anyway, so this would say, hey, if we had just kept the certified tax rate, what would have happened? Well, because, and then I said in this scenario too, let's just hold everyone's home values the exact same from the previous year. So there's no change in value. but we're going to take the certified tax rate. So again, the certified tax rates, completely revenue driven. There's no tax increase with a certified tax rate. You can see that my taxes would have gone up $11. But what that tells you just by staying at zero, the certified tax rate floated up because property values as a whole came down inside of Brigham city. Um, so that you can go through and see the different individuals and how it impacts them, the values of the homes, So as Mayor Bott read the impact statement or schedule, talked about in there, the average home value is around $400,000. So in this case, Thor is probably the closest to that individual. So Thor, if the city had not approved any suggested, any property tax increase to exceed the certified tax rate, Thor's taxes still would have gone up by $13. But what we're talking about tonight is, hey, we are suggesting we're going to exceed the certified tax rate. To fund the things we talked about, to fund the parts, the changes with the mayor's office. So you can see in the additional, again, holding the HOLTS value equal. Now I'm going to pay $28. So I have an additional $17 that's being driven from the increase in the proposed tax rate. You can go down and you can see how it's impacting Wolverine. Spider-Man and those different individuals that they're getting hit with. And the thing off to the side, it shows, okay, per month, what does this increase mean? So for me, the tax increase, not even the tax increase, my increase from, I want to say from last year's taxes to this year's taxes is $28. That means I have a $2.37 additional every month that I need to come up with. And me on my soapbox, since I'm up here and I have the microphone, if you think about that, what you're getting for that additional $2, police, EMS, parks, competent city staff with a knowledge base that keeps us out of multimillion-dollar litigation. that's able to go and help us recruit companies, bring in economic development to help lower the tax rate for all the other property and parcel owners in the city. I don't want to stand up here and just say this to embarrass Nicole, but that's what a person of her caliber brings to the table, is you're avoiding the litigation through helping us understand correct policies and procedures to teach our employees But then it's also, Hey, if we're going to go recruit these people to come into our city, let's do smart economic development. Let's have smart zoning that is not going to lead to issues down the road. And it makes it so that these companies are, are excited and are willing to come into the city because they see the professional competence of the staff. All right. Off the soapbox. So as we talk about property tax, one of the cool things here is the property tax. I know it's not everyone's favorite tax. No one likes taxes, period. So the reason that property tax is appealing to a financial individual such as myself is it is very steady. As you think about maybe water coming into a tank, so you have water coming in, we'll say that's kind of the income. The water's holding there in the tank. You now have a stock value. That's what property tax is. It's not a consumable. It's not you're spending it or you're receiving it. And as the water leaves, consumption is, hey, look, that's sales tax. So the city does not have an income tax. We do have a stock tax, property tax. And the consumption tax is when our consumers, when our residents and other residents come and spend their money inside city limits, we receive a sales tax. So both sales tax and income tax, those flow variables are very volatile. A lot of ups and downs. depending on what's going on. And we've seen that. We've all experienced that. From a financial standpoint, the reason that property tax is so good is you can see property tax is the red line up there. It's just stable. It helps the city present good budgets. And I know the city council's heard multiple times from Jeff, from myself, and from Mr. Euler about ongoing expenditures. If it's an ongoing expenditure, you need to best practices, you need to cover that with an ongoing revenue. And the best ongoing, the most secure ongoing revenue the city has is property tax. So here's the property tax rates of surrounding cities as we look at what's being proposed around us. So Brigham City is the red, that red, red line, the one kind of the third from the bottom. And you know, this slide is, it just shows the tax rates around us. But it's important to understand too, that every city is different, that there's different tax bases in different cities. And it speaks to the importance of economic development and the ability to get that tax rate, the pie, go back to thinking about the pie. And if you have economic development that's coming in, companies, large companies, businesses, retail, they come in, they're now, the pie is growing and they're going to take up more of the share. So ideally less of a burden on residential, um, One of the great issues that we have faced through the budget we've talked about is our power. Right now, that is the biggest constraint on Brigham City's economic development, is getting adequate power to those folks that want to come here. And we continue to work hard, and the council's going to hear more on that topic in the months ahead of the issues that we're facing and how we're going to address them. In this year's budget and the previous budget, started a bond payment for a peaking plant that the city's building right now at the mouth of the canyon to address some of that energy demand that we're seeing. And we'll continue to look at that. Really, that's all I had for my presentation. Sorry I went long. But I think it's important that we be open and transparent about the issues we're facing. And I think the council should be If you think about it, I go back to when Mayor Bob presented, we were at 12.93%. We're now at 4.81% for an increase. And again, so in the certified tax rate world, it's a good system. There are some inherent issues with it, though. The biggest issue that exists in there, there is no adjuster for inflation. They just go and say, hey, it looks like $3 million you got this year. Last year, you get this year again. There's nothing that says, Hey, by the way, we all live in the same world. The gas is going up at the more expensive certified tax rate does not take into account for inflation. Um, mayor bought, he experienced this when he was on the city council is that if you don't take small bites of the apple, that as you continue to push it down, eventually you are going to have to eat the whole apple. And we're seeing cities throughout municipalities, other taxing entities throughout the state this year that are asking anywhere from 50% to 220% tax increase. Because that's the thing is with the certified tax rate, it is a difficult process to go through. A lot of time councils, commissions, other boards, they just kick the can down the road. They don't want to do it because it's not fun. And no one wants to pay more taxes. It's not like, hey, this is great. But The point is, so mayor bought, when he was on the council, he went through it, Brigham city went through a large tax increase proposal. Um, he'll talk about this, but the thing that he heard most down at the fire station was, Hey, we understand we get it. Why didn't you do baby steps? Why are you talking about 80, 90% increase when, if you just would have taken four here, six here, five, we wouldn't have had to do the whole. 90%. Um, so I, I would, from being in this role now, this is my 15th year of doing truth and taxation, whether it's the County auditor or the finance slash economic guy for the city. Um, I think it's prudent to continue to take those small bites of the apple. And again, I know the taxes are not everyone's favorite thing, but again, look at the services we're receiving. I love living in a community where I call nine one, one people show up. I love having roads to drive on, enjoying parks and recreation. My son played in a flag football game the other night. And those are the things that make the community a community. And with that, that's my presentation. Any questions, comments that I can address from the council?

Council, do you have any questions? There shouldn't be. We're just taking public comment tonight through a public hearing. If you have any questions, please address them to Mr. Cotter. If not, we will entertain and ask for a motion to open a public hearing about the 2026-27 budget tax increase in our Truth in Taxation meeting tonight. We have a motion by Councilmember Hipp to open the public hearing. We have a second. Second. Second by Councilmember Jensen. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I forgot to excuse Council Member Jeffries, who is not with us tonight. Now we're in public hearing. We invite all those who would like to publicly comment. Please come up to the podium. Please state your name and where you live for the public record. And we would love to hear from you for up to three minutes.

Good evening, Mayor, Board, and Council. My name is Glenn Thurston. I live at 405 West 200 South here in Brigham. I do have some questions about, and I know that you may not be able to answer them right now. I do have questions for you, though, about the increase to the city attorney position. It is unclear to me whether the $129,000 is in addition to the $150,000 that have previously been budgeted or the $200,000 that you recently increased the city attorney's salary to. It is unclear whether the full-time city attorney would also take over prosecution of criminal cases in the Justice Court or if we are going to pay additional money for that. It is, again, unclear because no one knows except for maybe you guys, and I really hate to do this, but it's unclear whether Ms. Caudill will be continuing to serve as the full-time city attorney. If that is the plan, I have some concerns with that plan. She is also a full-time employee for a council for Utopia and has previously been serving as a full-time council for MISA. It seems that having that many responsibilities may not lend itself to being a full-time attorney for the city. Beyond that, if the budget really is $329,843 for a city attorney, including their benefits. That's an extraordinarily large sum for a city attorney in Utah, in a city the size of Brigham City. I think that that would put them almost at the most expensive or the highest salaries city attorney in the state. I understand. I am an attorney myself. I work at the county attorney's office. I understand. the things that a city attorney would do, I do them for the county. But at the same time, that's a lot of money. And those are those are my concerns. I do appreciate the council's work in reducing the proposed increase from 12% down to this 4%. I think it's a lot more palatable this way. And I appreciate the work that you guys are doing. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Marcy Andrews. I live at 448 South 200 West in Brigham City. And I have more just comments and a question I would like to reiterate that I ditto the concerns previously expressed regarding the county attorney. Having said that, I do think we need a full-time county attorney. So there is your juxtaposition for dollar amount versus needs. I wanted to point out or get on the record that it says that the certified tax rate is 0.15 or just under that based on this slide that was presented. And we are having a proposed tax rate of 4.1%. That's quite a big difference between the certified tax rate and the proposed. That's the median. I get that. However, when you tax property taxes, then as a landlord, you're taxing Those people that are renting that are not able to afford homes either. I own homes. I'm a landlord. I'm not going to eat that cost. That's going to trickle down. And that's going to have a huge effect on those people that are really just making ends meet. And as well as those that are in a fixed income situation. with retired people as well. Those are big differences. And I apologize for not being firm on this knowledge, but in that proposed budget, are you not giving yourselves raises as well? And thank you for clarifying that, and good for you.

I mean, I'm sorry. There were raises, but that's not in the tax increase. That's just in the normal budget. That's just in your normal budget.

The other aspect that I wanted to bring out is that as we look at, Whereas I've read about the general fund transfers from the utilities, it appears that every year the utilities are going up and the excess gets transferred over to a general fund. And it feels like we're getting taxed there so that you guys can have some more tax for the city to spend. Perception, if I'm incorrect, then probably some clarification on why that happens every year. you get a big influx of general fund transfers, a concern. And finally, the last thing I wanted to say was kudos for you for raising the police of the salaries. That I think is very important. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you, Marcy.

I'm Scott Turner. I own a medical building near the hospital, 990 South Medical Drive, ground level three. This is probably more for the county assessor who I've contacted and tried to get a hold of. But just so that you know, you may not be aware, but our building, I know at least of one other owner in my building, property tax has been valued at more than double what it was last year. So I know that the tax rate increase may not be that much, but when you more than double the value of a property, my property taxes have gone through the roof compared to what it's been. And I'm not sure the justification, again, probably a question for the county assessor, as to why that was such an increase. I understand that property values go up. I don't dispute that, but I have a hard time swallowing that my property went up by more than 100% in one year, and it's over $200,000 more than I paid for it less than 10 years ago. So anyhow, just maybe something you're not aware of, but there may be some other business owners down by the hospital who are wondering why their property value has gone literally doubled in just a year's time. Thank you.

You bet. We've seen that in other businesses, Scott, and just be aware there is an appeals process over at the county level. I'm sure you're aware of that.

I'm sorry. Okay.

Okay. We do have some folks online. Are there any comments online? We'll continue within the room. If there's anybody that would still continue to like to make comment, please come to the podium. I appreciate the comments from Glant, Marcy, and Scott. After the meeting, if you'd like to hold back, we'll have Mr. Euler and Mr. Cotter address a couple of those.

We can do it in the public hearing.

It's noted. Okay. All right.

You need to close the public hearing now. Yeah, in order to do it. Sure.

If they're seeing council, seeing as how it doesn't appear there's any more public comments in our public hearing, we would entertain a motion or enjoy a motion to close public hearing.

Motion to close.

We have a motion to close our public hearing by Council Member Troxell. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Council Member Jensen. All those in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. Public hearing now stands closed. We would like to take just a minute and address a couple of those questions. Mr. Euler, would you like to talk about the city attorney and some of the comments that were made there?

Yeah, I will. Thanks, Mayor. So I'll do my best to cover the questions as I was writing them down as quick as I could. So discussions on the wages for the city attorney, what is in the tax increase is the difference between the current contract that we have with the current city attorney and the proposed wage for a new full-time attorney. It is not a combination of both. The question came up concerning the previous public hearing at an ordinance that had an amount for a full-time attorney. That is the total amount. Brigham City Corporation cannot pay more than what was in that ordinance and the separate public hearing for any of the appointed or elected officials that was in that ordinance. So it is just the difference between the current contract and the proposal for a new city attorney. There's a question about prosecution. Brigham City currently has outside counsel that is not Ms. Cottle that does our city prosecution through a separate contract. Is that going to continue? We will fulfill the current contract that we have with outside counsel for prosecution through that contract. And I think long term, the question on is Brigham City going to have in-house counsel do prosecution or contract, it really depends on who you hire. In the city attorney world, there's a lot of attorneys that are prosecutors and there's civil attorneys. The person sitting next to me is one of the best civil attorneys in the state of Utah. Doesn't do prosecution. That's why Brigham City is contracted out. We have contracted out prosecution historically on and off many times over the years. As our city grows, it's getting more busy with prosecution, and I would suspect that we'll continue to contract that out. We need really good in-house civil counsel.

I think I would just add to that, Mr. Royler, that we do put it out to bid, and that contract goes out so that it's not just, hey, who do we like? We put it out to bid.

I think just for clarification, I know this is really personal, but that's how life is sometimes when you're working in the public sector, but Although every single city employee and my executive staff and probably those of you up here on the dais would absolutely love for Nicole Cottle to be the full-time city attorney. She won't be applying for that job and will not be Brigham City's full-time attorney, even though we'd love to have her.

And then try it hard.

So... There was a question, property tax valuations from Mr. Turner. I think the mayor explained that we do not do the valuations. Tom did talk about it briefly on, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Cotter, but on residentials, it's about every three years that they do reassessments on residential. Commercial is less on a schedule. Go ahead.

Yeah, so they'll use, well, In my experience while I was there, they use models, very complicated assessment tools that they understand. They'll go through and do those models that fit these properties that meet this type of criteria. We're seeing that they have an increase or decrease in value based on X, Y, and Z. And they will apply that throughout the entire area that they may be looking at. But yeah, state code requires them to go do a physical visit. It used to be five, it may be three now. I don't know for sure. I know for a fact, at least it was five, that it required a physical so they had to go and actually look at the parcel and see what was happening. The other side of that thing too is in Utah, your primary residence is taxed at 55% of its value. So if you're a commercial, it's 100% if you're a resident. So if you have a home that's a fair market value, a set value of $100,000, your taxable value is $55,000.

And that's, that's figured in like the differences, like Scott's building went up. I brought my tax notification for my commercial building here as well. And it, it went up quite a bit. So that, that money that goes, that increase in the commercial, how do you say that? It goes towards the pie. Yeah. Yeah. So, so it kind of changes a little bit residential wise. If I, if I'm,

understand that all correct yeah okay yeah the commercial properties we've seen this it was actually pretty significant last year last year there was a significant shift from residential to commercial properties in brigham city um i don't know if you've looked or you or jeff have looked into the details for the current year but a year ago there was a pretty significant shift um in increased valuations on commercial properties actually citywide and sounds like there could be a few more of those going on right now so there was that i was a little bit confused on the question from miss andrews mayor with the tax rate itself as compared to the percentage of increase so the tax rate is it you know per thousand based on the valuation of that or the taxable value and the percentage of increase is just brigand city's portion so a 4.18 or 4.81 increase on a decimal let's go back to algebra here it's it's still a it doesn't move that number very far um because obviously that our tax rate is less than one so you you know you just move that decimal over so If she'd like more clarity on something like that, Tom or I could get with her after the meeting. I don't have anything else, Mayor. Thanks.

Anything else that you caught, Tom, on those questions?

All right. With the public hearing over adjourned, not adjourned, sorry.

Public hearing over, there is again one action item and once again, It's odd. This is the first time there's ever been an action item in a truth in taxation public hearing, but it's pursuant to Utah code that came into existence after this last legislative session. And that requires us to approve the additional ad valorem property tax revenue shown in the property tax impact schedule that is in and noted publicly and on the folks' agenda that's in the room. and that was read by the mayor. So that would be the motion is to approve that additional ad valorem property tax revenue.

I would like to thank the state for making this more confusing than it already was.

I don't know how. Maybe our city attorney can.

Yeah, no, that's just great. So this is an administrative activity. And what you're doing as a council tonight is recognizing that You as a council have directed and we have prepared this property tax impact schedule as required by state law. And this property tax impact schedule exists and shows the proposed property tax increase that you'll be discussing with regards to the budget on the 20th. So this is not an approval of the percentage. This is not approval of the increase. This is an administrative activity that we then send this approval to the state. And the state marks our box that we took the action that we were required to take by state law. That's all.

We're clear as mud. We're approving that the mayor. Good. Approving that the mayor read this.

All right. We need a motion on the action item. And I would just read it, whoever makes the motion. to approve and then read till it says Jeff Schmidt. Don't read Jeff Schmidt.

Mayor, I move that we approve consideration of approval of the additional ad valorem property tax revenue shown in the property tax impact schedule above.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second by Council Member Hipp. The motion was by Council Member Jensen. I'm sorry, Council Member Smith. The second was by Council Member Hipp. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Doesn't appear. Thank you. Before we adjourn, there was the one question on the utility fund transfer. We've addressed this lots of times before. I think we have an example. I'm speculating there's an example in Utah right now. There's a Utah city that no longer has its own utility. Sold it years ago to a different entity. This year, they have a proposed tax rate increase of 220%. make up the difference that they were getting that utility transfer to pay for the services their city then gives to the city so our utility transfer goes into the general fund and that hill that funds police fire senior services parks it goes into our regular budget so that we don't have to have a large property tax it's able and that is fair philosophically because there are a lot of properties and entities that are exempt from property tax but they use the services within the city. And so that's one of the reasons why we do that and why it makes sense.

If I may.

Yes, please.

So most of Utah is on Rocky Mountain Power. And Brigham City has the luxury of not being on them. We have our own utility. Rocky Mountain Power does the same thing we do. They buy power. They resell it. And they take the profits. and it goes to the shareholders of Rocky Mountain Power, which in the end I think is Warren Buffett. He's won, yes. So he takes the profit and pockets it. Brigham City, we try and keep our rates similar to Rocky Mountain Power, similar as close as we can. They can change theirs, we can change ours, but it's pretty similar. We take the profit and we put it back into the town. That's what this transfer is. They take the profit, put it in their shareholders' pockets, We put it into our shareholders' pocket, which is back into the town, if that makes sense. So we could lower property tax or utility rates, but then that profit would have to come up with somewhere else or would have to cut other services in town. That's all it is. They send it to their owners. We put it back into the town.

Yeah. Hold on. Please come to the podium. It's still a public meeting.

You probably ought to reopen the public hearing.

Just wait until...

He did close it. You take a vote on it.

Yeah. Yeah, we're not discussing the tax rate though.

You want me to not? I can talk to you.

Yeah, why don't you talk to him after? That's the smart, maybe the right way to do it. Reminds me of that story when I was young, right, that there were two, This isn't on the agenda. Wagon owners. No, but it goes to open to public meetings and how I like to stay as far away from the edge of grayness as possible. So I won't tell the story, but that explains it. Stay away as far away from what could be perceived as the breaking of an open to public meeting as we can. All right. We need a motion to adjourn. I'm going to We have a motion by Council Member Smith and a second by Council Member Kemp. Pardon me. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Motion passes. We stand adjourned. And thank you, folks, for coming and participating and commenting. I appreciate it.