COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — Cottonwood Heights leaders want Salt Lake County to pony up money they say is wrongfully stockpiled in county coffers.

And legislation passed in Wednesday's special session may have opened the door to funnel that money back to the city.

"We keep prodding the county saying, 'When are you going to give us that couple million dollars?'" Mayor Kelvyn Cullimore Jr. said. "That's money city residents paid. You would hope there would be some ownership of a portion of it."

The measure clarifies state law to allow county governments to dish out a chunk of the municipal services fund to newly incorporated cities. It was previously not legal for Salt Lake County to dole out money from the fund, which had about a $20 million balance at the end of 2004.

City Manager Liane Stillman said that surplus is due in large part to payments made by Cottonwood Heights before it incorporated in January. County leaders, she said, cushioned the fund with tax revenue from Cottonwood Heights that exceeded the cost of services provided by the county.

The unincorporated area's tax revenues boosted the county's surplus by about $7 million, Stillman said.

"Cottonwood Heights has been filling up the bucket and it's quite full now," Stillman said. "We're not just walking away from all that money."

Stillman said the county's tactic equates to "double taxation" because the city is still having to pay full price for county contracts for services like police and fire.

The new legislation, Stillman said, opens up the county's options for compensating Cottonwood Heights for its years of overpayment. Ideally, Stillman said she wants the county to apply a credit to the city's contracted services bill or give Cottonwood Heights some other type of kickback.

But handing out cash from the municipal services fund is new territory for Salt Lake County, county councilman Mark Crockett said. The county generally financially bolsters new cities by giving grants or loans from the general fund.

"The county has always given some amount of transition costs to new cities starting up," he said. "I think Cottonwood Heights may be looking to ask for more than what's been given in the past."

Though there have been no specific negotiations on a dollar figure, Crockett said the council will be open to discussing how to help the city in its first year. If the council does give the city some aid, Crockett noted that it is not because the city has any claim to county funds. "It's not a question of entitlement, but it may be a question of fairness," he said. One possible solution, Crockett said, would be to determine what money the county had set aside for services in Cottonwood Heights and give the city the amount that would otherwise now be surplus The extra money would give a boost to the city's revenues, which are lagging as the city waits for sales and property taxes to be redirected from the county. Those funds are expected to hit city coffers in July.

Until then, the city is relying on tax anticipation loans to stay afloat and on top of its $12 million budget.

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