Property tax notices — a shock in the mail

"We realize the tax increase is large. But even with it, it's not going to fund all of our needs," he said.

Rare decreases

Some decreases did occur, which may mean good news for a few Utahns.

For example, Plain City in Weber County decreased its property taxes revenues by 12.8 percent.

Mayor Jay Jenkins said, "We need to be conservative, let people spend their own money and take only what we need to run the city." He said the city wants to cut back on general taxes as much as possible "to prevent having just a big pool of money that can be spent."

He said he has seen too many other cities raising taxes "and using just about any reason so they will have more money to spend." He wants any increases to be for very specific purposes and either fund themselves or have enough support to merit a general tax increase.

Another decrease — of 10.3 percent — came in Summit County. Commissioner Sally Elliott said it came about because of growth there that also is expanding its property tax base. She said that is more than covering the cost of expanding services (adding workers without extra administration), so taxes went down a bit.

She stresses the county is still expanding services, not cutting them. "For example, we're now offering free public transit in western Summit County," she said.

What appeared to be big cuts elsewhere are not what they seem at first glance. For example, data show Herriman is cutting its property tax revenues by 75 percent. But that is mostly because the city chose to end providing its own fire protection and instead joined the Salt Lake Valley Fire Service Area.

So taxes that had gone to Herriman for fire protection are now essentially going to the fire district, but overall taxes for residents of Herriman did go down because of the move.

Most expensive

For the second year in a row, Tax Area 426 in Ogden — consisting of four houses on Shadow Mountain Lane — has the highest property taxes in Utah.

Homeowners there pay $2,395 on a $250,000 home (actually down a bit from last year). That's more than three times higher than the lowest-taxed area in Utah, an unincorporated portion of Rich County near Bear Lake.

"We were afraid we would be the highest again, because I guess things like that don't change very easily," said Kathleen Alder, a resident of Shadow Mountain Lane.

She added, "We don't mind paying our fair share, but we want to make sure it is spent wisely. Because it is an election year, we will look extra carefully at who is running to make sure we get someone who will be frugal with our money."