Salt Lake County residents are getting another tax hike.
The Salt Lake County Council voted Tuesday to impose a sales tax increase that will help expand the county’s jail system.
Salt Lake County residents are getting another tax hike.
The County Council voted 7-2 Tuesday to impose a 0.2-percentage-point sales tax increase. The rate hike, which will collect a penny for every $5 spent in the county, will go into effect July 1 and generate about $76 million annually.
Of that new revenue, about half will pay for transportation projects in Salt Lake County, a quarter of it will go to cities within the county for municipal-level transportation projects, and the remaining quarter will go toward the county’s jail system.
Council member Laurie Stringham said she was “not thrilled” to support the tax hike. If the council had been given more time instead of facing additional pressure from state legislators to expand the system, she said, the county may have been able to add jail beds without raising taxes.
“The only two options we really have in front of us that we can use to address these issues that are being pushed and forced from the Legislature right now are property taxes and the sales tax,” Stringham said. “… I’m looking at that and having to weigh my options. This is about the only way we can bring up this kind of income that is less intrusive, that doesn’t go on food, that doesn’t go on more basic needs.”
Of the $19 million in new revenue that will be set aside for the jail system, about $6.4 million will go toward adding 248 beds, including 184 at Oxbow Jail and 64 at the Salt Lake County metro jail.The main jail was last expanded in 2001, and since then, the county’s population has ballooned by over 30%.
Last year, nearly 4,000 inmates were released early due to overcrowding, Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Matt Dumont said during a council meeting last month. Current jail numbers show the facility is at 98% of its operational capacity of 2,101 inmates.
Bills pushed by state legislators to hold more offenders in jail could strain the system even more, county officials have said.
The remaining $12.6 million in new sales tax revenue for the jail system will be allocated toward future modifications to the main jail, along with immediate deferred maintenance needs at the Oxbow facility and “other key criminal justice priorities,” according to a county news release.
Council members Sheldon Stewart and Carlos Moreno cast the two votes against the tax hike.
Stewart cited concerns with using money from sales tax revenue to pay for jail initiatives beyond new beds.
Last week, he said he felt the rate increase would “backdoor” programs that would’ve been funded by the half-billion-dollar criminal justice bond measure county voters rejected last fall.
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