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Property tax hikes 2006

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The most expensive

A look at Shadow Mountain Lane helps show why some areas have higher taxes than others, and why its taxes are the highest of the high. (One other Ogden tax district has slightly higher taxes, but it contains no residences — just vacant commercial land.)

Residents on Shadow Mountain Lane have two problems: First, they pay to an especially long list of different local governments; and second, many of those governments charge among the highest rates for agencies of their kind.

Shadow Mountain Lane residents pay tax to eight local government entities (Weber County, Ogden city, Ogden School District, three water/sewer districts, a mosquito abatement district and the new Weber Area Dispatch 911 district), plus they pay a special Ogden levy to help purchase additional water supplies.

In comparison, residents in unincorporated Kane County, who have the state's lowest tax rate, pay taxes to only three local government entities (Kane County, the Kane County School District and a water conservancy district).

The governments that tax Shadow Mountain Lane residents also are among the most expensive of their kind.

For example, Weber County's government has the third-highest tax rate among the state's 29 counties. The Ogden City School District has the third-highest rates among the state's 40 school districts. Ogden has the second-highest taxes among large cities.

With such high charges by multiple governments, all "tax areas" within Ogden make the list of the top five highest rates charged anywhere in Utah.

Shadow Mountain Lane residents were charged even more than other Ogden residents because crisscrossing boundaries included them in one more water district than most other Ogdenites — in the Uintah Highlands Water and Sewer Improvement District.