Bill Powell, public works director for Draper, said the Traverse Ridge Special Service District was created "to pay for the incremental costs of providing services" on the mountain beyond core services to Draper residents in the valley. "For example, to get water up there we have to have several lift stations," he said, adding that snow-removal costs are higher — and some small parks there are maintained.

Doyle said, "I knew they charged us more for services up here — but I didn't know it was three times more" than for other Draper residents.

Tax hikes, tax cuts

That helps demonstrate that taxes within the same city or community often vary greatly, depending on where boundaries overlap for the various types of service districts and other local governments.

For example, Draper has 20 different taxing districts (in two counties) because of overlapping boundaries of various service districts — with taxes among them ranging from $1,596.10 to $2,038.52, a difference of $442.

Sandy has the most taxing districts of any Wasatch Front city — 44, with taxes differing by up to $168 dollars depending on where residents live.

The city with the biggest range among taxing districts within it is West Jordan, with a $502.81 differential between the highest and lowest taxes among its 32 tax districts.

Besides calculating just the highest- and lowest-taxed areas along the Wasatch Front, the Morning News also figured which areas — and which specific local governments — had the biggest tax cuts and tax hikes.

A tax district in the city of South Weber, Davis County, had the biggest tax cut among occupied areas in the Wasatch Front — a decrease of $57.64 from last year, with taxes dropping from $1,404.59 to $1,346.95 on a $200,000 home.

The taxing district with the second-biggest cut was also in South Weber. Others in the top 10 for tax cuts were in Magna, West Jordan, Kearns and West Valley City.

The two tax districts with the largest tax hikes were in tiny Vineyard, Utah County, where taxes skyrocketed by $328 on a $200,000 home. That came largely because the state and Utah County forgave property taxes on the now-closed Geneva Steel plant, from which most of Vineyard's tax revenues had come in the past.

That forced Vineyard to more than double its share of taxes (from $220 to $521 on a $200,000 home), and cut services in half. The town of Vineyard had the largest tax increase of any local government.

All the other top 10 districts for tax hikes were also in Utah County — in Springville, Spanish Fork, Genola, Santaquin, Goshen, Payson, Benjamin and Salem. Much of that came because of a large $130 tax increase on a $200,000 home by the Nebo School District, which serves most of those areas.