HB362 - The Bad and the Ugly

A question about HB362 came up during our "Meet the Candidates" night on July 28th. At the time I hadn't scrutinized the bill as I should so recently I took a look. Remember that I'm not a lawyer and I don't pretend to understand all the legalese. However, I do believe that I have enough understanding to formulate a personal conclusion on it.

The bill seems to be completely dependent on the definition and implementation of a "Public Transit District" and whether the county has one or not. I looked up UTA and found that it was established in 1970 under the authority of the Public Transit District Act. It has two board members from Utah County and therefore I've concluded that we are now or will soon be within the UTA Transit District.

If in fact we are part of the UTA Transit District then the bill breaks down the distribution of the .25% sales tax increase as follows:

1. 40% goes directly to the UTA
2. 20% to the Utah County legislative body.
3. 20% to the cities in the county based on the population distribution.
4. 20% goes to the city where the tax is collected

The only substantial piece of the pie applicable to Elk Ridge is the 20% distribution based on our population. If the population of Elk Ridge is assumed to be 3000 and the population of Utah County is 540000 then we get .56% (3000/540000) of the 20% specified by #3 above.

If every person in the county pays an additional $1 of sales tax due to this bill then Elk Ridge would get $600 of additional tax revenue. Doesn't sound too bad until you realize that the residents of Elk Ridge had to pay $3000 of additional taxes to get the $600 back.

So what does the distribution of our $3000 tax look like? Well, the following graph shows just what it would look like.

For every dollar an Elk Ridge resident pays 80% goes somewhere else. And who do you think gets the big dollars?

Yep, UTA gets their massive payout. Of course the county commission gets their big chunk too and that will surely go to north county development to bail out Lehi, Eagle Mountain, and surrounding cities growth explosion.

I can't see much of an upside to this tax increase if you live in the south valley.

Thanks for a Successful Primary Election

Cindi and I were pretty excited last night when all precincts had reported and I wasn't eliminated. You just never know until the votes are counted.

This is my first venture into politics and it's certainly interesting. I didn't expect to be in a primary when I applied for the position but now it's on to the general election.

I want to say thanks to those who voted for me. It's pretty humbling. I now look forward to meeting many more people in Elk Ridge as the November election approaches.

You can see the results of the primary at here.