In The Middle of Everything

City Hall – 7505 South Holden Street • Midvale, UT 84047

Marcus’ Message

801-567-7200

Finance/Utilities 801-567-7200

Court 801-567-7265

City Attorney’s O ce 801-567-7250

City Recorder/Human Resources 801-567-7228

Community Development 801-567-7211

Public Works 801-567-7235

Ace Disposal/Recycling 801-363-9995

Midvale Historical Museum 801-567-7285

Midvale Senior Center 385-468-3350

SL County Animal Services 385-468-7387

Communications 801-567-7230

Midvale City Elected Officials

MAYOR

Marcus Stevenson 801-567-7204

Email: mstevenson@midvale.com

CITY COUNCIL

District 1 - Quinn Sperry

Email: qsperry@midvale.com

District 2 - Paul Glover

Email: pglover@midvale.com

District 3 - Heidi Robinson

Email: Hrobinson@midvale.com

District 4 - Bryant Brown

Email: bbrown@midvale.com

District 5 - Dustin Gettel

Email: dgettel@midvale.com

WHO TO CALL FOR…

Water Bills 801-567-7200

Ordering A New Trash Can 801-567-7202

Permits 801-567-7213

Court 801-567-7265

Paying For Tra c School 801-567-7202

Business Licensing 801-567-7214 Cemetery 801-567-7235

Planning and Zoning 801-567-7231

Code Enforcement 801-567-7208

Building inspections 801-567-7213

Graffiti 385-468-9769

PUBLIC SAFETY & EMERGENCY CONTACTS

EMERGENCY 911

UFA Fire/UPD Police

> Non-emergency 801-840-4000

Uni ed Police Department

> Midvale Precinct 385-468-9350

Public Works 801-567-7235

Rocky Mountain Power 877-508-5088

City Newsletter

By Mayor Marcus Stevenson

Preparing for the Fiscal Year 2023-2024 Budget

It’s that time of year again when cities across the State prepare for a new budget cycle. This cycle, called a scal year, runs from July 1 to June 30 each year. As we go through this process and create our budget, it’s an opportunity to communicate the values of our city, guide its operations, and allocate resources. Preparing for this scal year has been especially challenging with in ationary pressures and an uncertain national economy.

One major budgetary challenge that Midvale faces, is that we rely heavily on sales tax revenue compared to other sources, such as property tax. This makes our budget more susceptible to economic downturns than communities with greater balance in their revenue sources. In fact, of our $25 million budget, property tax is estimated to account for about $3.1 million in the upcoming scal year, whereas sales tax is estimated to account for $10.7 million. Ideally, those two amounts would be similar, and the imbalance means that as we prepare for a potential recession, we need to budget as conservatively as we can because sales tax is directly impacted by the state of the economy. Because of this, we’ve estimated no new increases in sales tax and have decreased our budget by about 2%.

A Conservative Approach While Increasing Services

While our overall budget has decreased, that doesn’t mean we are not increasing services, but rather that we cut in other areas and prioritized what was critical.

The Uni ed Police Department (UPD) saw the largest single increase within our budget. It’s estimated that the member fee Midvale City pays to UPD will increase by about $600,000, meaning our overall member fee will be about $12 million and is roughly 48% of our budget. This increase represents the continued wage wars that we are seeing in public safety and includes a new sergeant position in our Midvale precinct to oversee the Direct Enforcement Unit (DEU). It is this unit that does special projects such as investigating crimes that may include nuisance locations, gangs, narcotics, tra c enforcement, and other situations.

In public works there are a couple of sta ng changes. First, we are fully funding a parks and cemetery position. While this position was rst added to the budget last year, it was only funded for the last half of the scal year. By fully funding this position, it will give the City the necessary help to continue our work to curb vandalism at our parks, provide more appealing park space, and maintain new park space in the Jordan Blu s area. Secondly, we are proposing an additional full-time facilities journeyman. This employee will help maintain all city-owned buildings and grounds along with one other journeyman. The additional sta ng will help complete major maintenance needs more quickly, which in turn can save residents money by preventing deferred maintenance that grows more costly overtime.

Lastly, in conjunction with Salt Lake County, we have been fortunate to receive a multi-year grant from the State of Utah which will fully fund hiring a full-time Communities that Care (CTC) Coalition Coordinator. CTC is a national, science-backed, data-driven program that connects community resources to each other. Midvale has many incredible non-pro ts that operate within our community, who help our residents, but unfortunately, they are not always connected to each other. The goal with a CTC is to identify community challenges, such as food insecurity or underage drug use, and to come up with a plan to address these most critical needs. The Coalition Coordinator will be charged with leading this e ort.

Financial Impact on Residents

Even by increasing service levels and cutting the overall budget by 2%, we need to propose a 3.4% property tax increase. This increase of $7 per year on the average home will not only provide better service levels, but also help our budget stay current with in ation, help the imbalance we have in property & sales tax, and allow us to use the best nancial practices by ensuring that we do not use one-time funds for on-going expenses. I would never count on birthday money to pay for my mortgage, and the city shouldn’t either. This change allows us to be more nancially stable and responsible during a time when it’s essential.

While any property tax increase may initially sound like a lot, it’s important to keep in mind that this only applies to the Midvale City portion of your property tax bill, which is currently $208 per year on the average home. Further, it’s an important reminder that even with increased home prices, the amount that the city collects from property tax does not increase. As an example, if Midvale City collected $100 from your property taxes last year, then we will collect $100 again this year, regardless of any changes to your property value unless we go into the process to raise property taxes called Truth & Taxation.

Conclusion

I know that even a small tax increase is likely not what anyone wants to hear. I also hope that the average increase of $0.58 a month is well worth having a more e cient police department, long-term building maintenance cost savings, more clean and beautiful parks, increasing the e ectiveness of our many nonpro ts, and helping to stabilize our city nances so that we can continue to deliver critical municipal services, even through di cult economic times.