Salt Lake Co.’s 5 metro townships on track to become cities as bill heads to Cox’s desk
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Salt Lake County’s five metro townships, including the communities of Kearns and Magna, will likely cease to exist as they have since 2015.
Instead, they will become regular cities.
This will be the result of House Bill 35, which unanimously passed the Utah Legislature this session. The bill is now headed to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk for his signature or veto.
Bill would turn Salt Lake Co.’s 5 metro townships into cities, give them taxing authority
“I don’t anticipate the governor having any issue with this bill,” said Rep. Jordan Teuscher (R-South Jordan), the bill’s sponsor. “It’s supported by Salt Lake County and all the metro townships.”
Background
Salt Lake County’s five metro townships are Kearns, Magna, Copperton, Emigration Canyon, and White City. No other metro townships exist in Utah.
Roughly eight years ago, these then-unincorporated parts of the county were turned into metro townships in an effort to stop nearby cities from annexing border areas to boost their tax bases.
Over the years, laws were passed to make metro townships function more and more like cities. However, two key differences remained.
First, metro townships don’t elect their mayors at large. Instead, the mayors are picked by council members.
The second major difference is that metro townships can’t assess property taxes to provide services like trash collection or policing. Instead, special service districts provide these services, and residents pay them directly.
What HB35 Does
Should HB35 be signed into law in the coming weeks, it would take effect on May 1. All of the metro townships would then become cities, except for Copperton, which would become a town.
“The difference between a city and town is just the size of the population,” Teuscher said. “So if you have over 1,000 people, you’re a city, and if you have less than 1,000 people, you’re a town.”
Aside from the name change, the biggest difference for these communities will be that they have taxing authority.
However, should the newly-minted cities want to impose any new tax it would have to be brought before residents, the same process as in other cities.
“In talking with all the metro townships, there aren’t any plans to increase taxes other than if it were to be offset by the service districts themselves,” Teuscher said, explaining that the tax would effectively replace the payment to a service district.
But even in that case, the new cities would need go through a truth and taxation process.
Earlier this month, Kearns Mayor Kelly Bush told ABC4.com that becoming a city would allow Kearns to find new ways to pay for services without increasing taxes. There’s even a possibility that these new powers could help the new cities save taxpayers money.
“Whatever the taxing authority is, it’s not about imposing a further tax burden on our taxpayers,” she said. “That’s not what this is about.”
No More Islands
Teuscher also has a companion bill to HB35 before lawmakers this session, and it too focuses on Salt Lake County.
House Bill 330 would make it so that there are no more unincorporated “islands” that are completely surrounded by other municipalities in the state’s most populous county, which is home to over 1 million people.
“With the passage of HB330 and HB35, in three years Salt Lake County will be wall-to-wall cities,” Teuscher said. “There’ll be no area unincorporated or something different like a township.”
HB330 unanimously passed the House last week, and got a favorable recommendation Monday in the Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee.
The bill is now slated to be read on the Senate floor.
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