Habbeshaw said much of the increase in the county is to hire extra employees and to build facilities needed to keep up with growth. The city also needed to catch up for years of not increasing taxes. In fact, last year Kane County had the lowest taxes of any place in Utah. Habbeshaw now figures it will be near the middle of the pack.

In what is a bit confusing to explain, some governments on the list of tax hikers actually lowered their rates from last year.

The reason is that every year, counties by law must figure what rate local governments would need to charge to generate the same revenue as the previous year, allowing some additional increases from new development. That rate is called the "certified tax rate."

But because property values rise quickly in some areas, their certified tax rate is sometimes lower than the tax rate they charged the previous year to generate the same revenue. The truth-in-taxation law was designed, in part, not to allow governments to capture huge windfalls from rising property values without explaining how they use the extra money.

"But in South Jordan, the reality is we are dropping our tax rate from last year," said City Manager Rick Horst.

He complains because the city by law still must buy newspaper ads saying it is proposing an increase to the certified tax rate, which is lower because of rising property values. "It confuses our residents."

So South Jordan bought an extra newspaper ad to explain its view that the overall rate is dropping from last year. It also said the increase beyond the certified rate will help pay for rising costs of parks and roads, employee benefits and fuel for the city fleet.

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E-mail: lee@desnews.com