City Council - Regular Meeting

in person here at the meeting. Then we'll move to, I think, Sierra, to the verbal through Microsoft Teams, is that correct? And then we're gonna move to item three under that, in writing through the Q&A feature of Microsoft Teams. And then following that, we'll have our public comments by Finance Director Denise Roy. We'll share the city's property tax impact statement on that. And we'll go to that point, City Administrator Scott Darrington. We'd like to recognize council member Lamone is with us now.

Sorry I had a grandma duty and you're good. That's a good thing.

Okay.

Okay, Mayor, Council, we've been working on this for a few months now. There might be some residents here that this might be somewhat new to them, and some of this is probably going to be familiar to them. So there might be some residents here that this might be somewhat new to them, and some of this is probably going to be familiar to them.

And do we have the, is the TV on in the back too? Okay. Okay.

So initially the proposal was trying to increase our staffing for the police and fire department. And this is stemming from some surveys we've done with our neighboring communities to see what their staffing levels are. I mean, that's one aspect of it, but that's what you see up here is probably the thing that is at least in my mind as the administrator, which will be helpful for our city. is the initial proposal was to add two police officers and also some additional funding for our reserve program. and also some money for retention. So the reserve program is we bring in officers from other cities that have experience. They'll work a shift or two for us. And so we get the experience of the officer working for us as a city. That officer's trying to make a little extra money. They want to pick up some extra shifts. But we get an experienced officer that is now on our streets doing patrol. So we have set aside which would be the equivalent of one person through the reserve program, and then we're looking at two other police officers. This was the initial request back when we talked about this in February, March, April. We were also asking for three new full-time firefighters. The initial cost for all this was about $683,000, which the recommendation of the staff was to do through the property tax. At the time, based on the numbers that we had, it was gonna be $4.16 per month on an average home in Pleasant Grove. Now, this is before we got our new numbers from the county, but in essence, the average home in Pleasant Grove at the time was $587,000. So that's the number that we've been working off as we've been having these discussions. So what I'm showing up here is the need. This is why we are requesting this. is that we are trying to get more sworn officers. So if you look at our sworn officers per 1,000 population, ideally, you're right at the 1.0 number. We're a little less than that, 0.79. So this will help bolster that number. And again, because one of them is a reserve, it doesn't necessarily count towards our full-time officers. But this will put us in a better position. And then on the fire department side, We run one station, and this is the reason why that number's so low for us, is because we have three shifts at one station. And right now, of those three shifts, we have five full timers. Ideally, on a given shift, we have seven firefighters on our shift, so we are relying on two part timers to fulfill us getting to seven on each shift. Part-timers, generally speaking, is similar to a reserve program. They're generally full-time somewhere else. They're a certified firefighter and they're coming and they're working a shift or two for us. The thing about part-timers is sometimes you're asking people to work and they don't want to work. as far as the part-time is concerned. Or we have a full-timer that goes on vacation. And so now we just need a part-timer to backfill that just to get back up to five. So ideally on a shift, we're gonna run seven. Sometimes we're at seven, sometimes we don't quite get to seven, maybe we'll have six and our worst case is five, which we can still do what we need to do at five, but it is, it's not as ideal. And so we want to bolster that number. Right now what we're requesting is to get to six full timers per shift. And ideally we get to seven, we have all seven. That's not what the request is this year, but we do eventually want to get to seven. And that might take a minute, that might take a year or two before we get there as far as that's concerned. So that's the request that is on the table through the property tax. Now, in the course of going through this process, the hard part for us as staff, particularly on the finance side, is we only have the information that we have as we're trying to project revenues and we're trying to project expenses so that when we get into any given moment for instance if we're trying to project our sales tax revenues for next year and we're in march we're working off of probably seven months out of 12 of what our current year sales tax numbers are And so when we're trying to project out, that just makes things a little tricky. So as we went through this process, the council said, we want you to reevaluate this and see if there's a way that we can reduce that number from $4.16 a month down to something else. And so that's when we went back as staff. Fortunately, by the beginning of June, our last two months of sales tax numbers had come in higher than what we had projected. That freed up some money that we could use out of our existing general fund monies that we weren't gonna need to have additional tax money to pay for that, additional property tax money. So if our burden was initially 680,000, I think we reduced it. Did you give me that number? Is it 120? about 120,000 of new sales tax revenue. So we had four things that we evaluated. Thank you.

I need my glasses for this.

The new sales tax number was 129,841 additional. We also have a reimbursement from our school resource officer from the school where we had been in negotiations to have them pay more for that and that finally came to fruition. So that's more money that dumps back into the general fund. And then we have a new hotel that was opening in town When we were putting the budget together, I thought it was gonna be opening later in the year and come to find out it did open, I think, end of June, beginning of July. So we do get what's called a transient room tax off of that. We estimate that to be at about $30,000 based on the other hotel that we have in our community. So that was new money that we were able to put into that. And then we also had some money that was initially in the capital fund to fund cameras, police body cams, and things like that. We moved it over into the operating fund because it was a three-year contract, and so I felt comfortable using capital money, one-time monies for that. Probably makes more sense to have that money in the operating fund, but that one can go either way, in my opinion. And so we took that money that was in the operating fund and we moved that back into the capital fund. So as a result, that freed up $317,421, which is now coming out of existing funds and doesn't need to be funded through the property tax. So that reduced the property tax request from $4.16 a month down to $2.26 per month, and that's on an average home. So Denise is gonna go over the impact schedule, and on the impact schedule, I mean, it gets detailed as far as the overall numbers, but essentially the revenue request is for $365,667. And that is $2.26 per month on an average home, which according to the county is $601,623. So that's what the request. So with that money, what the state requires is that we have to be very specific as to what that money is going to be expended on. And so when we put this together initially, that was the two police officers and reserve and also three firefighters, including outfitting, including funding for retention with our police department. So when we are able to find existing funds of $317,000 and reduce that burden, what we are now, what will be funded with the property tax if it were to go through is one police officer and then help us fund essentially another officer through the reserve program and then it will be some money for retention. On the fire department, it will be for two new firefighters. Now, we're still getting three firefighters, but we're paying for one of them out of existing funds, and we're paying for one of our police officers out of existing funds. So when it comes to the discussion of the property tax, that's not what is being contemplated, because we're already going to be able to fund those through existing funds. I think one thing I wanna show you, and this is a question that we get asked from time to time, is what does this look like for other cities? There are a decent amount of cities that have decided that they're gonna pursue a property tax increase. In fact, I think there's a few.

Scott, you have a few windows open there?

Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot going on. I mean, hey, this is just one aspect of what we're working on. And so this is a chart that represents if every city with their proposed tax increase this year was to go through. So a good example is Eagle Mountain. They had their hearing last Thursday. Their rate is going to increase dramatically because this is interesting to me. They're going to fund their entire police department out of property tax. That's their proposal. That's what they want to do. Now, if we were to do that, I think, in general speaking, police departments like $6 million and our revenues for property tax were like 4 million, we'd have to increase our property tax $2 million, probably a 50% increase if we just wanted to fund our police department using the property tax. So that's a tactic they're using and that's fine, that's up to Eagle Mountain. But because of that, that's moving them, they used to have one of the lower property taxes that moved them over. And I know Saratoga Springs as well, is uh they're growing and so they have to build new fire stations and they have to staff those and so those that's an outcome of of the growth so as you can see we're probably on the less than the 50th percentile our rate if the city council goes through with this it goes from 0.000938 to 0.001020. So that's what's reflected on the graph here. So that is, in a nutshell, that's the reasons why. And then, I mean, we're just comparing to other cities just as a point of reference. I'll say this, our needs are our needs to compare to other cities is one way to do it, but that's not the main reason I would say that we would do a tax increase, but it does help with the perspective of kind of what's going on around us. To my understanding, Saratoga, Cedar Hills, American Fork, I think out that was gonna go into back in, May and early June, but when the council put the rate out that was going to go into the property tax notices They reduced that rate down to the eight point seven five So we almost cut that in half from sixteen point five five down to eight point seven five percent Thank You Mary didn't mention that number Council do you have any questions for?

Scott, if not, we'll, because it's a public hearing, we'll move into that portion. Since this is a public hearing, we just ask those who are in person that are gonna come up to state their full name, and then you'll have three minutes for that. And we'll go ahead and open up our public hearing at this time. Welcome, John. You still have to state your name, sorry.

John Johannes Meyer. First, I want to compliment the City Council for going from the 1655 down to the eight something percent. Awesome. We always like not being taxed more. Beautiful. That's a good thing. I think the reason citizens show up is because We have a real interest in this. Increasing taxes is a big thing, and it shouldn't be done lightly. Last time when we were here talking, or the previous time, it was at 16%. That's a pretty big, that's a double-digit increase. And gratefully, I think you've listened to some of the citizens that work this out, put the pencil to the paper, and figure it out. And I think that's awesome. So I do commend you for that. Thank you. But I guess what I also want to say is, what can we do more? In the private sector, when you don't have enough money, the first thing you do is say, how can we cut? There's usually layoffs. There's things that happen to say, we have to stay within our budget. We don't have this unlimited pool that we can just say, we're going to tax more to increase. I would look at salaries, look at areas that you can cut and try to cut taxes because it is a huge burden on all of us these days. And I know $20 a year is not a huge significant amount. It's really the principle. And overall, it's a cumulative thing that happens. We get $20 here, the school district charges more, this charges more, whatever it might be continues to go up. I know right now it's forecasted that the Grove area is gonna bring in about $10 million of additional funding. That's awesome. That's what we need is retail business. That saves us. Let's put the tax burden on somebody else and not the citizens. But this is a direct tax on our property, which is a hard pill to swallow. And I would encourage you, look at other ways. Look at ways to cut expenses, because that's what the private sector would do. I appreciate all the work that's been done, but I believe there's still even more that can be done. So that's all I have to say.

Thank you, John.

Yeah.

Anyone else? Please come forward.

Happy Tuesday evening. My name is Jonathan Kirk. I'm here to speak in favor of the increase. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the city has actually done its work to figure out how to bring it down, so good job. But quite frankly, the numbers are telling. Your guys' job is, I think everyone here and everybody in the city understands and appreciates that your job is to not just merely provide for infrastructure, but to protect our citizens. Okay, so I think, quite frankly, I think you have a duty on this one. Our numbers are below. I'm pretty sure, I don't know if any of you have ever answered a 911 phone call when, or if anybody here has answered a 911 phone call knowing that there were not enough officers or firefighters on duty to handle. If you've sat on a phone call for 15 minutes giving instructions for CPR hoping that the next paramedic can show up. I don't think anybody here answered the phone call that I did when Lehigh Sergeant Joseph Adams was shot and killed. I was the one speaking with the first person there that witnessed it. And it took longer than we wanted. Look at Lehigh's numbers. They're still low. We cannot be low. We don't have resource officers in every school. I don't want my kid going to school and having an incident. We need our numbers higher, and you have a duty to raise this $2 a month. Just to me, the idea of anybody coming up and even arguing about that, I think is unfortunate. So I think everybody should be willing to pay a whole lot more so that we can have better protection, better officers, not just more, better trained, keep them. So I'm in favor of it, please.

Thanks, John. Anyone else? Welcome.

These are prescriptions. If I want to see you, I have to put them back on. I don't have to do that. You look good. My first name is Sean. My last name is Barry. Sounds good. I have to also read, so that's my other issue. There's two things I'm thinking about. John Johannesmeyer mentioned about budgeting on an either personal basis or a business basis. We look at anything we have to do and say, if it's not gonna fund everything, you have to put it in the hierarchy. And one of the things that as much fun as a park, fireworks, an activity that the city would sponsor might be, The police and the fire department, I agree with Mr. Kirk, they are very important. There should be a hierarchy. So if we're bringing money in, we should be looking at the most important things to fund first. And then if we have a surplus, then say, you know what, we're gonna be able to do that. and we can take care of that. Again, examples were fireworks, park activities, something like that. Those things, while they're fun, they don't mess with people's livelihood. And property taxes, in my opinion, messes with my livelihood because it takes something away from what I'm trying to provide for my family, is how I look at it. I bought my home in 2020 here. We came from Provo. We love Pleasant Grove. It is a wonderful place to live. But the value that they had of that then was just under $400,000. And they're valuing this. And again, this is the county that does this, I understand. But the percentage is everybody gets that percentage of cut. It's now valued for this tax year at $631,000. Is it worth that? I don't know. To get the money, I have to sell it. So I don't want to do that. I want to stay. So I don't have that money yet. That's unrealized gain when you look at it from a business standpoint. The rate remaining the same multiplied by my increase in property value gives everyone across the board in that slide that everybody saw, it gives you an increase. You're getting an increase. We should be able to afford it out of that. That is the raise. that we get. And so I'm looking at it, I would vote no on anything like that when the values have kept going up. If it changes, then we can look at it again. But as John Johannesmeyer said, It always seems like it's going up and up and up. I know it's, what, $2 per house or something like that per month, so 25 bucks a year, something like that, 30 bucks. Is that gonna kill me? No, it's not. But it's death by a thousand cuts. And one of these days, there's gonna be a senior up here who says, I can't afford to stay here because they're taxing me out of my home. because they can't go out like I might be able to, or somebody else who's still working, pick up a side gig, increase the business, do whatever you gotta do to bring in a little more money. And that's what everybody, that's what most people do. They figure it out. Second jobs, that's it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Jim Adams. This isn't so much for you guys, but it's for everybody else that's listening online. What services do you wanna cut? Because we can cut services and then we might not need as many officers and firefighters. Let's cut the, if your neighbor's dog is barking, call someone else. Somebody broke into your car and you don't have them there detained, do you like Salt Lake? Give them a website and they call in and they get a police report number so they can file it with their insurance. You want somebody to come take your keys out of your car that you locked them in? Pay for it out of pocket. Cut services. Cut the parks. Cut the rec center. Cut the library. Cut services. because that's where it's gonna be. So unfortunately, things do need, things cost more, and there needs to be increases. This is a really small increase, and by the way, I'm in favor of it, because I've seen firsthand what the difference is, having officers that are seasoned to show up to a call, as opposed to an officer, and I don't know how many people know this, but five years ago, our beginning officers made less than $20 an hour. I believe it was 1982 or something like that was the starting wage. Five 10-year officers weren't making over 30. So when we talk about cutting salaries, hell no. We were the lowest paid department in this entire county for decades. Now I think we're second or third. We're not at the bottom anymore, we've come up, thank you. So it's not cutting salaries. That's just not going to be an option. Cut services or raise taxes. I'm sure that you guys at one point when we start getting more taxes in like you've already done, you've already kind of shown the direction that you want to go. I would love to sit here and you guys say, hey, guess what, PG? We're going to do a 2% reduction in property taxes because our sale taxes have now improved more than we thought that they were. And you're probably still going to have people up here bitching and moaning about it. So I don't envy the position that you guys are in, but if somebody wants to have a problem with how we have to pay and it's two bucks a month, when you need the police to do something that you won't do, tough shit, figure it out. Because that's where it's gonna be, because that's where other cities are. Not just in our own county, in our own state, but throughout the country, they're cutting services. So you wanna cut services or you wanna pay a couple bucks more a month to make sure that you can get yourself taken care of. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right, not seeing anyone else come up. We're gonna move to our second portion of this. Sierra, I'm gonna check in with the online verbal public comments.

We do not have anyone online at this time.

Okay, so none. So then I think we move then to the written, are there any written comments? We do not have any written comments online. All right. So... With that said, then I think, Scott, we're moving to then item three. Or do we wanna bring it back up here to council to make some comments?

Well, just with an understanding, council's not taking a vote tonight. The vote's gonna be next week when we go to adopt our budget. Tonight's purpose was for the public to make their comment. It's up to you if anybody wants to comment on anything. If not, then we would go to item number three.

Before I bring it back up here to Council, Scott, we could have you, because I think there was some questions brought up about how property tax works. If you could explain that, because yes, we are adding more citizens to our homes, but could you properly address that?

Yeah, no, thank you, Mayor. Scott, before you start, I just want to make sure, because I didn't hear you officially close the public. Oh, sorry.

So we'll go ahead and close the public hearing at this time, and we'll invite our city administrator, Scott, up. Sorry, thanks.

Yeah, the question comes up, and sometimes this is just a misunderstanding, that when your property value goes up, that your taxes are automatically going to increase with it. The state has set it up that as the value of your home increases, your rate goes down. Now this is done on a citywide basis. And so it's not as simple as if your assessed valuation goes up $25,000 that the rate is going to adjust specifically for your property. It doesn't work that way. But in a general sense, when we get our assessed valuation as a city for the city as a whole, then our rate is reduced to make sure our revenues are the same as what they were last year. So we are not benefiting from the increased values in a home. We do benefit from new growth. So if we have things that were not on the tax rolls last year that are on the tax rolls this year, that's new money that comes into the city. But an increase in value is not a cash cow for the city. I need to research this because I do remember when I started here in 2010, our rate was over .002 something, and now we're at .0009 because the value of what the property value of Pleasant Grove in 16 years has increased quite a bit, but that's why our rate has dropped.

I think I mispercept, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Oh, I'm sorry, I think you showed us a graphic of the slide of our rate going down, and then it came up a little bit on one of the tax increases. When we did the tax increase, yeah. And then it slid down again, and so now we're effectively going back to the rate that existed, I think, two years ago or something like that is what this vote would do. Yeah. So I think you did show that in a public meeting.

Yeah, and that was probably the $4.16 number. So it probably hasn't come up as much.

I think the misperception from the public comes from the fact that their total bill does keep going up, but it just doesn't pertain to the city's taxing authority. It's the school board. I mean, you probably have the percentage offhand, or maybe Denise does.

About 15% of your property tax goes to the city.

70% goes to the school district.

The county and the school play under the same rules. So as the valuation goes up, their rates are dropped as well.

but they might raise their taxes under different rules. For us, we're talking about our taxes for the city, what we control. We aren't raising them every year. If your tax bill goes up, it has nothing to do with what we're raising unless we have this kind of truth in taxation or a specific tax increase proposal. So just want to make sure that that's understood is that we're such a small, small part of that tax bill and we only control what we can control.

Well, and I think there's a misnomer when we say it's going to raise by 16%. I think the general public looks at their tax bill that was due here just recently, and they think 16% of a $3,000 tax bill.

We want to make sure we say 8.75.

It was.

It was 16. It was 16. We moved it to 8, right? So when they hear that, it's... It's now, we're recommending an 8% increase on the city portion of the tax bill. Which is 15% of their overall tax bill.

Council, do you have any other questions? So do you have any questions for Scott? Steve? No, I don't have a question. Oh yeah, go ahead, yeah.

I just wanted to say I think that we really appreciate the engagement of the public on this issue. We did a survey. We had enough people respond to the survey for it to be statistically significant. And that just gives us information as a council to make these decisions that we can see are kind of needed for our city and i appreciate the public's engagement i i just i have also paid attention around us of where those tax rates and increases are going um and and uh for instance eagle mountain i think passed one last week at 183 percent saratoga is considering a 50 increase cedar hills our neighbor to the north is considering 19.55 percent american fork is is considering an 8.48%, which is $33 a month on a standard household there. So an actual higher dollar amount, but a similar percentage. And then even outside of Utah County, looking at cities that are similar size to us, Woodcross is at 46%, Cottonwood Heights, 42%, Draper Salt Lake is 25, Draper Utah, 22%, Kaysville, 14%, South Salt Lake, 12.9%. So this is a reality of our state and wanting to make sure that we provide the services that we feel are necessary for our citizens. And I can tell you, and I know I've talked to a lot of John and Bob and to a lot of the folks here that have made comments, that we take those very seriously. And then we did go back and did a lot of our own research to make sure that what we're doing is fiscally responsible for the city. And what I can say is, as I look at our directors, I think we have our public works director here, we have our police chief, I know our fire chief and some of our fire captains are here. As I look at what they're doing for this city and what they're doing it with, I know that our dollars are being spent in a very responsible way. I've gone through the numbers. I've gone through the budget. I've asked questions. I've sat down with Scott and Denise multiple times. We've had discussions and some other things and reports generated that have raised some discussion points. And as I look at our directors and our divisions in our city, I am impressed by what they do with what they have. And when I look at our police department and our fire department and what they have to deal with, and the difficult things that they do for us, there's no way that I would ever consider cutting those services. We have private citizens, Jim was up here, he's part of the honorary colonels. We have private citizens that donate a lot of money to help our police department to help shoulder that cost. Those are private citizens and businesses that dedicate time and money to help our police force have the things they need. And as a city, I agree with Mr. Kirk, it's our duty to provide those services to our citizens so that we know that we've done what we can to keep them safe and protected in the most vulnerable of times. So I really just appreciate our city directors and administration going through the exercises with us doing the hard work, finding where we can save a bunch of money because we did. And we did cut things that maybe weren't necessary. We did budget differently so that we could get everything that we identified as a need for half of the property tax increase. And I think that our staff and our administration, that shows a lot of character, a lot of ability, and I really appreciate it. So that's all I wanna say.

Thank you. Council Member Anderson, do you have anything?

Well, I'll give Steve a standing ovation on that one. One thing I do want to say, and I agree with Steve 100%. I want to address the revenue coming in from the Grove. That will only continue. And I think that will help us fund services that we need, especially as our daytime population down in the Grove grows. I do want to say this about how I feel about hiring police and fire full-time. And I'm not a doomsday or but if there is a catastrophe your staff that is full time will come to your your town your staff that is part time will go to their full time job. And I love having qualified. educated, smart, tenured first responders in my town when a catastrophe happens. Anyway.

Council Member Phillips, do you have anything?

I do. I also echo Steve's comments and Diana's. I'm a little Conflicted though, I think Mr. Kirk and Jim, you've made a liar out of me in the sense that I've said no one would ever advocate for a tax increase. But I appreciate your words and your perspective and your willingness to stand up as essentially one on an island to say this is the right thing to do. So often we have what I would call the extremely vocal minority who stands up and criticizes the very heavy responsibility that we take. And I appreciate you standing up and being willing to say that. Mr. Johannesmeyer mentioned it's the principle, and I absolutely agree that it's the principle. Unfortunately to me, it's the principle that I am not willing at least in the current circumstances, to cut everything else simply because we want to make sure there's only enough money for police. This is a community that we are a part of. The services that we provide, especially for those in greatest need, my first city responsibilities and volunteering opportunities were with the library. I spent six years on the library board and I know what a community center our library is, where it provides an opportunity for those who may not have internet at home or may not have the resources that so many of us take for granted that benefit. And we have a responsibility, and I don't consider this socialism at all, but we have a responsibility to make sure that especially the least in our community have access to resources, access to the programs, access to the community opportunities like the library, the rec center, the programs that make such a difference in the lives of our neighbors. And I am grateful to stand behind that principle that I will stand for everyone and completely support in this time and this need our fire and our police and the great things that they do.

Thank you. Councilman William, do you have anything?

No, I don't think so. I mean, I, you know, we've, we've talked a lot about this, uh, in a lot of different, uh, avenues from, um, from expenses to revenue and, and, you know, that's, that's my, that's what I do, um, every day. And, uh, And the city has done an amazing job at ensuring that we match our revenues, our tax-generated revenue, to appropriate expenses. And there was questions, there was answers, there was accountability, there was direction, there was change, there was, and... I have no questions or comments. I'm comfortable with where we're currently sitting.

Right, okay. I'll just make a few, oh, sorry. Okay, back to council member. I didn't have questions, but I just had a comment.

Okay. One, I appreciate your engagement. It helps me as a council member when I hear from the public, make decisions, and so I do appreciate that. I think there's, as I've been engaging, a little bit of a misconception. I think people think the city is immune to inflation or cost increase because, I don't know if it's because we're a government or just entity that, cities are that we don't get affected by gas prices and you know supplies something is like fertilizer to go for our parks can cost you know an increase of thousands of dollars so there's things that we get affected by and we have to increase our costs and you know unfortunately pass those on so we can maintain the level of service that we want for our citizens but I think that gets forgotten sometimes that because we're not a private business we're your business and we're a public business that doesn't affect us, but it does. And then I think the other misconception that I've kind of heard is that, well, we're getting all this new business and tax growth, so where's all that revenue going? With that tax growth comes the growth of more people and more businesses and more impact on our services which is why our first responders are so critical at this time especially with a new hotel going in more housing going in and businesses we want to make sure those are protected and safe and my job as a council member first and foremost is the health safety and welfare of the community so if that's taken care of then i feel we can address the other uh you know areas that we that we need to work on um you know one resident spoke about the livelihood of the community I would say when we have about 6,000 to 7,000 people down enjoying the fireworks on our 250th celebration of a country, that's part of our livelihood. And so we try to balance that livelihood with the needs of our first responders and our parks and our recreation. And so we try, that's our job is to make sure everything is covered. Because what one person thinks is a livelihood may not be the same for someone else. which is again why we want you to come and give us your comments. And I appreciate that personally as a council member. I'm glad that we got the rate to where it is. It was a double digit increase. Now we're down to 8.75 and I think that's a doable amount for many people. I don't think $2 on average is unreasonable to ask for considering what it's going towards. I do think that this honestly should have, we should probably look at doing something like this incrementally and not do as large of amount, but we don't get in a situation where now we have to ask for something like Eagle Mountain or these other cities that Steve referred to. to only have two property tax increases over the last 40 years. One was proposed and we didn't end up going through, but to do two that we know over the past 40 years, we really should probably be planning a little bit better and making sure we're adjusting for inflation so we don't get in a problem like these other cities have done. and making sure that we're addressing those needs. And so that is something that I would like to look at going forward. So it's a manageable amount for our citizens and our businesses that we're addressing the needs without having to ask for more than we need to. But I don't feel like we're asking more than we need to. I think that we're asking for what our first responders need to make sure that we're safe. And like I said, the health and welfare is taking care of our community first and foremost, because that is my most important job as a council member. But I appreciate the comments and would ask that you continue to come regardless of what the issue is, because it does impact me as a council member. If I don't hear from you, then I just am going out the information I researched myself. But I appreciate you coming and hope that you will continue to be involved and engaged.

Thank you, Council Member Lamone. I'll just say a few words because I think, Council, thank you for your insight and your comments. Much appreciated. To the public, thank you, right, for coming out and expressing your views and your insight. You know, as I, I mean, I've lived in this city a long time, and we're a city of services, and who provides those services is our fine employees. And I appreciate them so much because as I drive around the city, and whether it's walking through the library or visiting Public Works or the Rec Center or all the different parks, I see not a city, I see a community. And I appreciate the work that is done on behalf of the citizens. Our employees work hard every day. We run a lean, mean machine here in Pleasant Grove. Like Councilmember Rogers said, I've looked at the numbers. I've looked at the numbers. We went back and forth. It means a lot to see that our police and fire stepped up and asked for help. You know, we went through this a few years ago. I think it's been more than a few years ago. We went through this process, and the council went through it and said, what is the most important, and we ranked everything. And then it was taken to a vote of the citizens. The citizens came back and said, no, we don't want to cut services. We don't want to cut the library. We don't want to cut the park. And that, I think, was overwhelmingly in favor of that. So I again appreciate the council for your comments and for your insight We are a growing city We have expectations to meet and this is one of them and so I think the next item is Denise you get to read your your your nice little bit there She should almost

Yeah, I was gonna see if one of you guys could repeat some of it. So as you know, this was a change at the legislature, so it's for us to be in compliance. Proposed property tax impact schedule, tentative budget, July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. Pleasant Grove City will consider an increase to its property tax rates from .00 to generate an additional $365,667. The following information is intended to provide decision makers and the public with an explanation of how the city's operations would be affected if the proposed property tax increase is adopted. Pleasant Grove City's current property tax rate is .000938. Pleasant Grove City's current property tax revenue is $4,178,247. The proposed revenue tax change would be $4,543,914. The new property tax revenue to Pleasant Grove City would be $365,667. The estimated increase to Pleasant Grove City's property tax revenue is 8.75%. Estimated annual increase to a primary residence of $601,623 is $27.16. Estimated annual increase to a commercial valued at $601,623 is $49.38. The affected department is police. The proposed budget is $6,541,602. Without the tax change, the budget would be $6,387,935. That budget change is $153,667. The impact of the tax increase, the police department will hire one new police officer and provide funding for reserve and retention. Affected department, fire. Proposed budget, $3,722,747. Budget without a tax change is $3,510,747. A budget change of $212,000. The impact of the tax increase, the fire department will hire two new firefighters and provide funding for outfitting. Total general fund change is $365,667. Thank you, Denise.

All right, with that said, I need a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second.

We have a motion by Councilmember Williams. I think I heard a second by Councilmember Rogers.

Yep.

All those in favor?