The Park City School Board voted Tuesday to increase the district’s tax burden by 2.8%, meaning a homeowner making $1.1 million will see an annual school district tax increase of $99.83.
According to the board, the increase will be used to fund living wages for teachers and other district employees.
Despite this justification, some community members have voiced their concerns about the continued increase in their taxes from the district.
According to Kathleen Britton, who is running against Danny Glaser for a seat on the school board next year, the anger is not over the collective bargaining-guaranteed raises for district employees, but over the district’s methods of funding those raises.
She spoke during Tuesday’s meeting and asked the board a number of questions.
“I want to know why we have to raise our taxes when we give millions of dollars back to the state every year – to the MSP tax equalization. Why can’t we review our budget, be more fiscally responsible and use the money we currently have?” she asked. “People like me who have lived here for 40 years are being driven out of this city by taxes. So how can you explain why you can’t use the funds currently available in a fiscally responsible way and raise our taxes again very significantly?”
School board chairman Andrew Caplan said the district can do nothing about the nearly $30 million the state of Utah took from the Park City School District last year as part of its reconciliation efforts.
“This is out of our control,” he said. “This is money we collect, you pay, the state keeps and distributes to other districts.”
Britton, who worked for the state Department of Education for a decade before retiring this summer, was unconvinced by his explanation.
“We have control over how much money we send back. It’s based on a formula that’s the sum of the (weighted student units) and our tax revenue. And then it’s all based on that and whatever’s left over goes back to the state,” she said. “If we used our budget properly, we wouldn’t have to send back so much money.”
Essentially, this means that Utah takes a portion of the per-pupil tax revenue generated by Park City District compared to other public districts in the state and redistributes it to districts with lower revenues.
Britton argued that if the district allocated its budget differently instead of raising more funds, the state would not collect as much money because the amount the district could raise per student would be less.
Britton also questioned why the district decided to raise taxes when enrollment has declined in recent years.
“It depends on the building permits,” Caplan said. “We don’t know for sure, but we can look at the building permits.”
If more affordable housing is built – which he believes is a good thing – more families can move into the community. He also cautioned that the district cannot positively assess and make predictions about growth.
Wendy Miller, another community member concerned about rising taxes, also spoke with district leaders.
“We’re from New York. We left New York because – one of the reasons – the taxes are outrageously high,” she said.
Despite her struggles in the state, she said that in the district where she lived, a community vote was required for budget approval.
“There have been times when it’s been rejected and they’ve just had to re-do their budget,” she said. “Here, and we’ve been to a number of council and board meetings, I’m sorry to say this, but it doesn’t seem to matter what anyone says or what anyone says they can’t keep doing because the decisions are the same and taxes are going up.”
She emphasized that Park City is not an extremely wealthy community across the board.
“This is not sustainable,” she said.
