All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our meeting this evening.

I'll call our meeting to order.

We have um all the council members present.

Councilmember Fred Lowry is online for this meeting.

Um the first item, our second item on our agenda is a public hearing.

This is a proposed tax increase.

It's a and we're gonna have a public hearing regarding the proof of tax rate.

So I'm turned over to John Vik, our finance director.

Go ahead, John.

So we are here for the public hearing on the uh tax increase associated with holding the tax rate steady.

So we are required by statute to uh inform people uh of a few things, and so this slide will take care of that.

Um we will need to read it twice because we will have two public hearings, one for Salt Lake County and one for Utah County.

So Draper City General Operations will receive an additional property tax revenue each year as a result of holding the tax rate level with the comp with the combined rate from last year.

The additional revenue represents from Salt Lake County 891,000 and 30 891036 from Utah County 44929 for a total of 935,965.

The additional tax revenue will be used to support inflationary cost increases within the city budget.

Um, and for no following this public hearing, the city will hold an additional public hearing and adopt a final budget on August 19th at the 7 o'clock p.m.

at 7 o'clock p.m.

at Draper City Hall.

So that meets all of the requirements that we are scheduled to do.

Just quickly through this.

We are holding the rate steady, so you can see the combined rate on the on my left-hand side shows what the rates have been since 2003 within Draper City.

Last year we had a combined rate, which was a which was the general operations rate plus the bond rate of 0.001022.

The proposal for this year is to maintain that rate at 0.001022.

Um the certified tax rate, which did not include the bond rate, which um because the city had paid off the bond was 0.00936.

So there's a difference there on a million dollar home of 47 30 cents.

So that would be the difference if we had used the certified tax rate as opposed to using the same tax rate as last year.

This chart shows uh all property tax rates within Salt Lake County.

The red line at the bottom, um, second from the bottom is Draper City.

Did you get that, Tasha?

Okay.

Um the chart of this is a chart of general fund revenues and a comp of a comparison from last year to this year on a budgetary uh scale, and then two slides, one expense by type.

So this shows us personnel costs versus operational costs, and then this one by department.

Um just this last slide shows a few of the notable increases or changes within it.

So revenue on the left hand, my left hand side and expenses on the right hand side.

You can see the different changes that are were within the proposed budget.

And that's the end of my presentation, and we would open it up for public comment.

Anybody have any questions for John before we take public comment?

I don't think Fred has sound yet, but okay.

Thank you, sir.

Right.

This is a public hearing.

Mr.

Mayor, before we start, can I fix the audio really quickly?

So Fred can fear.

Just need to just a few things.

Thank you.

We'll hold off then.

Welcome to enter your meeting ID followed by town.

Enter your participant ID followed by pound.

Otherwise, just pound.

You are in the meeting now.

There are two.

Okay, perfect.

We should be good now.

Yep, he's on.

You should be good.

Thank you.

All right.

This is a this is item two A.

It's a public hearing, a proposed property tax increase in Salt Lake County.

So this is an opportunity for Saltley County residents to speak to the council on this proposed tax increase.

We'll have a second hearing for those.

Is anybody here from Utah County?

All right.

Who would like to go first?

Rules are come up, state your name and address, and you'll get three minutes.

That's the time frame we allow for public comment.

And council will listen to your comment.

Um who would like to go first?

Come on up, sir.

Um John McMahon address 14344 Lapis Drive.

Um just I guess clarification on from my reading.

I know the bonds paid off, and we want to extend it just where that money would be used uh more clearly.

Is it for law enforcement for you know infrastructure where that money might go?

That's thank you, sir.

We'll answer we'll talk about that in our what we discuss it.

Anyone else like to make a general public or public comment on this item?

Come on up, sir.

Yes, I'm Paul Kearsley.

I live at 14686 Ravine Rockaway in Draper.

And I guess my questions are is we went through a uh tax increase last year, 2024, uh for 2025, and there was really no mention of the the bond coming due, and it seems a little odd or concerning to me that we're well the bonds due, so we're essentially continuing the same rate, but nothing's really changed.

So we're we're spending this additional money or monies on that was feeding the bond to add to the to the taxes.

It feels like that money ought to be budget should be based on on need and and requirements, and if we're just adding that money, it just seems like an extra throw-in to keep the money.

Um and so that's kind of my concern is is why was it this really brought up before part of the discussion with uh with the rate increase from uh that was started two years ago.

Thank you, sir.

Who would like to be next?

Come on, it's interesting.

Anyone else?

Come on up.

Cordell Anderson, one two two six three Durral Place.

And maybe I just don't understand, but the notice I just received recently shows the 24 and 25, and it shows an increase of nine percent.

And it does say the 25, so I was confused why it didn't say 2026 if we're planning ahead for next year, but the one I just got shows Draper City with a nine percent increase.

So I just like to understand on that.

All right, thank you, sir.

Anyone else?

All right, if there's no further public comment, we'll close a public comment on the Soly County side, and then we can address um some of the questions that you raised.

We did a tax increase last year, that is correct.

First one in 17 years that we've done.

Um that was primarily designed to go to public safety, and it did.

It all went into the public safety personnel equipment.

This money is the same.

We've been paying on this bond since I believe this is the quarter corner canyon when we first bought the corner canyon is voters.

And so if this bond were to fall off, we could reduce your taxes, and it would take 935,000 out of our budget.

Problem is um we we need 935,000.

It's the same exact situation.

All of the all of the inflationary costs have gone.

So we could we could do it where we reduce your taxes and then have another truth in taxation and come back and meet the budget that we need.

That's that's really what we're doing.

We thought this made sense with respect to we're all paying it and we hold the rate level with this.

We're still we're all still paying this.

We hold it level because we most definitely use the money.

The question is to where it goes, it goes into some of it will get spent on equipment that public safety uses, it'll get spent throughout our general fund budget.

But the important thing to know, um, we've lived for a long time in Draper City as a growth city where we've had the benefit of increasing sales tax year over year.

And so our property tax that we collect, you know, it doesn't cover basic operations of Draper City.

It doesn't even get close.

So we've lived on this sales tax growth over the last 17 years, actually, 18 years.

Despite what you might hear about this economy.

Um, sales tax has not only flattened out over last year, sales taxes down, and so we we have our limited resources to collect money, and sales tax is where we've been.

The reason we've been able to keep the rate so low, and we're still low.

The reason we've been able to hold it is because we've had this growth in sales tax.

Um we're out of growth, we're really phasing out of the growth phase.

We don't have any more new retail except for the point.

Um, and the point has the potential to be a significant retail contributor over time, but right now it's not contributing a nickel, it's it's not doing anything.

So a lot of cities, we're not the only one that's done it this way, but we've been living on that that difference in the sales tax because every year our sales taxes increase as we've added more retail.

We're out of that, we're out of that phase.

Um, it just is what it is.

Um we're we're gonna move from a growth phase city until the point kicks in to uh to a city that's gonna have to fund itself um on its property tax um and its sales tax, obviously, but that mix is is what it is.

With respect, John, do you want to address why this didn't come up last year?

So why we didn't do it last year, um the we had a bond payment last year, so uh we the budget that was come that would was presented last year presented a general operations piece and the bond piece.

So, as the residents, you saw you would have seen on your tax two line items in your property tax detail for Draper City.

It would have been a general operations piece as well as a bond piece.

Now, with no bond payment due this year, you only see one line line item from Draper City.

So the change in that one general operation is what represents the nine percent increase that was asked about.

That's where that increase comes because rather than that money going to pay off the bond, we are allocating that money into the general operations.

Why did it not come up last year?

Um, I think as we've been planning, uh, we've been looking at different things that we could do as a city, and we weren't sure exactly what we would do last year.

Whether you know, if sales tax can continue to grow, then would we actually need the money?

But as we looked at the budgets and projected things this year, uh there was a need to be able to find some money, and we felt like this would be something that uh would be uh something the residents would be able to do.

So that was kind of reasoning.

Thank you.

Council members, maybe comments, maybe we address every question.

Do you want to come back to slide six?

And we can we can show that the expenses that we need to cover type or do you want to buy department?

Uh by department is fine.

So, John, do you want to you can see the increase in expenses that we're having there in those those FYs?

We're having some changes to cover in facilities.

So if you look at column for FY25 and FY26, you can see that the projected costs require just a little bit more money.

Um, I think this makes prudent sense that since we're retiring a bond debt, we're keeping the tax rate the same, and we're just taking that money and using it to cover these increased expenses.

I think that makes sense rather than trying to figure out how to cut something in here that is an essential service.

I mean, I don't think anything there's really not essential, especially with the quality of life we want to have in our community.

So I'm happy to meet with anyone one-on-one.

I'm happy to talk with anyone one-on-one and hear your thoughts after the meeting.

I think what the mayor stated was really important that we are not able to pay for police and fire with our sales with our general fund money.

We have been using the sales tax revenue to supplement that fund for a long time.

And that's kind of a risky thing to do because sales tax can go up and down.

You know, we're always hoping, hoping that it goes up or stays stable, but we're not there now.

We're at a place where instead of even staying stable, it's dip it's dipping and dropping.

And there's never a moment where we cannot pay for police and fire.

We always have to have police and fire.

And in fact, there's some cities that do an annual adjustment to the tax rate just to keep up with those expenses.

Because the other piece you need to understand is that we have to pay more and more to our police and firefighters every year.

Because there aren't as many people going into police and fire, right?

We have to try to keep a base team here.

And unfortunately, they leave us frequently to go to other cities that are paying five, ten dollars more, you know, an hour, which is substantial for some of these young people just getting started.

So those costs just continue to go up.

Just just fire trucks, just fire trucks alone.

Seven years ago when we started our fire department, we bought all of our engines.

One, you could buy an engine and have it delivered in a few months.

That was the norm.

We buy Pierce firefighting Pierce engines.

They're made in Appleton, Wisconsin.

They're handmade, they're the best quality firefighting vehicles there are.

We paid for our main engine, the black one with the ladder, about I want to say 400,000-ish, 480.

And we got it like in a month, a couple of months.

That same truck's two million dollars now.

So I I and it takes two years to get it.

So you order it, you pay some money down, and then you wait a couple of years to get the truck.

Meanwhile, um we still respond to calls, and you know we've had a busy year in firefighting.

So I mean, those are just some of the actual hard money expenses that have gone up.

I don't know why Pierce has gotten that expensive, but it is what it is, and it it's hitting every community as far as that goes.

Um, police officers, um, we have we're fully staffed now because of the increase from last year.

We have a full staff of police officers.

They're a high quality bunch of police officers.

Um they're happy, they like to work here.

We don't have turnover like like we were we're having because we were you can't be the highest paid city, but you can't be the lowest one either.

So you've got to find a way to be somewhere where it's a good place to work and the money's still good.

It's not as good as some other cities because they pay more in worse places to police, quite frankly.

But those are some of the things we do.

Our firefighters part of the reason they deploy when you hear us talk about that.

They deploy because we get paid by the federal government to deploy them, and it helps fund and supplements.

We're we're trying everything we can physically do to keep your taxes low.

Like I said, it's been a it's been a long run with sales tax growth year over year.

We're in the sales tax decline right now.

Now it could pump back up, but this economy is not the economy that you're told it is, at least with respect to sales tax.

People just aren't buying stuff like they used to.

So that's sort of just an example of some of the expenses.

Everything's gotten more expensive from asphalt um to pipe to it, it doesn't you you name it, it's gone up.

You know this to go to the store and buy something.

It's the inflation's real.

It's it's legit, and it's not something we're making up, but we're just trying.

We felt like this was a way this wasn't really adding to the tax burden this time, it was keeping it where it is.

Yeah, we could have done a refund, but it we would have still had the hole we have.

So that's where it is.

I hate taxes as much as the next person, so there that's where we're at.

But all right, we appreciate your public comment.

Um we have another item coming up, item two, two B.

It's another another public hearing.

It's a proposed tax increase for an opportunity to hear from Utah County residents.

Is there anyone that's come in the room that's from the great county of Utah?

Anyone want to make a comment they didn't make before?

I'll give you a chance.

Come on up.

Now one of the senior citizens, so I don't have to chase it too much, you know.

But I'd have chased Mike every once in a while, I guess.

But give us your name and address Bob Clark, uh, 13590 South 30 East.

Been here for a few years in this thing, and I've um I just wonder when you say fully staffed.

I've always been interested in why we have to have this the numbers we have.

I mean, where do those numbers come from?

Like how many police officers we have to have, how many firemen we have to have, and things like that.

I was in a public meeting one time with uh Spanish fork, and a police officer got up and said, we don't have to have as many police officers in Spanish sport because you know we don't have the trouble we have in other places.

He says, I was a fire, he said I was a police officer in another city, had more bars and churches.

He said, Here we have more churches than bars.

So I just sometimes think that are we really doing the right things.

And I'm I'm not surely not knocking what you guys do because you go to good job, and I'm not volunteering, so I can't complain about it too much, right?

But I just wonder sometimes if we're not looking at other ways to to reduce and simplify in what we do, you know, and I think uh some of those things we could do is say, you know, like I've I've talked to a couple of police officers in the last little while, and I say, What if they you know ran those those vehicles a little longer and paid you more?

Because I mean your worry is that you're always having to fight with other cities to hire people so you don't have to train people.

But what if you have what if you actually had fewer and paid them more and had better quality people?

And I'm sure you probably discussed all that stuff, but those are some of my thoughts that I have for you that I look at those kind of things and say, is there an is there a better way to do it?

I mean, yes, everything you're saying is about costs going up.

I mean, I just read the other day that 70% of the households in America are living from paycheck to paycheck.

Draper is one of the most expensive places to live, and we like it.

We love it to be in here, and you provide great services, you know.

But uh people are suffering in what they're doing, and it's amazing to me when 50,000 people would get 10, you know.

I I came because I haven't been to one of these before, so I thought I better come and check it out, you know.

But uh so that's just some some some of my comments is why aren't we looking at other ways to maybe run things longer, reduce and simplify.

I'd like to play pay police officers and firemen more money and have fewer of them that were quality people.

I mean, I asked the guy they what if they paid you more and you ran drove your truck a couple more years, different city, you know.

You said I'd love that because they're not making it either, you know.

So just my just my thoughts, and I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Well, you already weighed one, so go ahead.

So anyone else wants to make a new one.

All right, we only do one, so all right.

I'll close the public hearing on on 2B, which is the Utah County.

And to your point um about how many do we need.

Well, if you ask the chief, we need 10 more than we got.

Um if you ask both chiefs, they'd tell you that.

So obviously we we got the number that we think part of the problem than the concept of paying more to have fewer, people don't want to work all the time.

And you get you always have a training rotation where some certain number of officers are training at any given time.

Um some of that stuff, we work through that, but we we have I think we have the minimum number we need to be to be safe and be able to provide service.

You may not realize the level of crime that we deal with.

Some of it it's just I mean, we have we've had everything in the last year, every kind of crime you can almost imagine.

We do some co economies of scale.

We work with we have a South Valley enforcement team where we work with Harriman, uh South Jordan, Sandy, ourselves.

We have a joint uh sort of a major crimes team.

We all share resources, we all share officers, and they have made some amazing uh criminal busts in the last six months.

Major crimes, trafficking to drug trafficking to you name it, major bank robbery rating.

We we broke it right here in Draper, right across from seven uh McDonald's, our our joint team.

So we're doing stuff like that.

All of us cities want to work together and help each other, but we do look at those at those concepts, and we have to do it.

Um police officers, it's interesting.

Um, when I asked the youth council, we have about a hundred and twenty-five youth council members.

How many of you want to be police officers?

The last seven years, it's been exactly zero kids.

Zero.

Um, I've asked them how many they want to be firefighters, zero kids.

How many want to go in the military?

It stayed at one percent.

This year is the first year I've ever had two kids raise their hand about being a police officer.

And it may not think seem like much to you, but when you think about how long it takes to get a person in the system, train them, make sure they know how to police the way we want them to, um, and the kind of people that you have a pool from.

It used to be a waiting list to become a police officer.

There used to be 30, 40 people on any given waiting list.

Not the case now.

Um, and so we are paying them more, paying them a lot more than we than I thought we'd pay them.

But everybody else is too.

And it's it's it's hard on each other because you know, Salt Lake City can raise it 15 bucks.

Not every cop will go there because they don't want to necessarily be in that every day, but they'll there's some that will.

Um we have really good ones.

We have really good firefighters.

The other thing that's a premium right now is paramedics.

They're um they're really, really expensive because there's not many of them, and they sort of have a market of their own thing, and of course we need them as well.

So anyway.

All right.

Mr.

Mayor.

Um, can I just add something?

I had the opportunity to go on ride-alongs with both the fire and the police, and to see them, you know, how they treat our residents, um, was really remarkable to me.

And my only experience I've had with police has been watching TV shows.

medics they're um they're really really expensive because there's not many of them and they sort of have a market of their they're their own thing and of course we need them as well so anyway um can I just add something I had the opportunity to go on right alongs with both the fire and the police and to see them you know how they treat our residents um was really remarkable to me and my only experience I've had with police is but watching TV shows um and when I rode along with them they they are not in pairs we just have one officer patrolling at at a time and that was really shocking to me because I assumed that our officers were out there together and so to me I feel like I would rather have our officers to you know have backup and and those kinds of things which they can they can call but just initially it's just one officer in a patrol car and so we we are not going over and above and beyond to provide public safety we are doing what is good for our city but in my opinion I would like to see to see more I would like our officers to feel like they are also protected and not going out there all on their own I mean it's a 24 hour operation so if we have 42 officers and you have three shifts eight hour shifts you're you're already looking at 24 a day someone calls in sick someone takes vacation you're now looking at like three or four at a time are on shift and on duty at any point in time so if you just take the number you have and realize that it's 24 hours a day people get sick people get vacation days it's it's they're they're stretched a little thin at times and there's a reason why we have the cross mutual aid agreements with Sandy City and our other departments you know and the other thing is when we set up Draper fire in 2017 we wanted to have four hand crews so our first fire department shows up at the house they can go in the house and get you right so if we if we did the UFA model where we only had three handed crews you're waiting for a second fire truck to show up before someone goes in because they got to have four guys on scene to go into house someone at the truck two guys going in the house with the hose and one person monitoring the roof right so that's the the four handed thing so if we were to we and that's a firefighter safety thing and that's get people out of houses that are on a fire thing and so I think it's the right thing to do to have four handed crews I think we have three handed crews up at Suncrest on night shifts and weekends but every other time we have four handed crews so our first fire truck that gets there can go in the house and get you and start putting out the fire so they're not waiting for a second vehicle I think that's a really critical thing in our community we've got open space so I think our manning levels are close and and they might not be there might be times where we we may want to increase them.

So I think we're doing what we're supposed to do at this point in time within our means and uh I mean you look at the roads we've got roads that we've got to fix we want to make our parks clean warm welcoming we want to make sure that when you go to the park that the bathroom works and we want to make sure that the level of services that you receive here in the community in the city are that of the caliber of the community we live in so I think our budget makes sense and I think this was just a way of keeping our rate the same and without having to add more money into people and and take from more people so it's it's maintaining the status quo while giving us more money it's kind of a unique I think compromise in situation so and I also I want you to know that we do always look for other ways to bring more funds into Draper you know we've tried to bring car dealerships into Draper if you need to buy a new car please buy car and draper that sales tax revenue really helps us Trader Joe's I mean there's there's ways that we can help you know shop local as much as you possibly can in Draper and we always look at things that we can cut back on.

We did eliminate a couple of positions this year that we just thought we didn't need to fill and that could be a cost savings for us.

So it is a whole scope here we're not just looking at just one piece any other comments council members all right that'll conclude our hearing is there a motion to adjourn so moved Mr.

Mayor motion by Mr Green's a second second second by Ms Lowry all in favor of adjourned say aye.

Aye any opposed all right we stand adjourned thank you for coming thanks Fred okay see if I