It was a kick to the taxpayers' gut Tuesday when the Salt Lake City Council, faced with new property tax revenue figures, voted to raise taxes for the second time in three weeks.

The council already had approved a $1.3 million tax increase to fund the city's library system. But after receiving new property tax figures from Salt Lake County — numbers that were less than the county and the State Tax Commission thought last month — city leaders boosted that tax hike by another $230,000.

The combined increases would boost annual taxes on a $175,000 home by roughly $11.50, and on a $2 million business by about $230.

As with the first tax increase, the council was not united Tuesday. Council members Dave Buhler and Dale Lambert voted against both increases, saying they were too large.

"I think we ought to stick with the tax increase we already passed rather than add to it," Lambert said.

Councilwoman Nancy Saxton voted against the first tax increase but voted for Tuesday's hike.

Previously, Saxton noted the hike would be overly burdensome to already struggling Salt Lake City businesses, which will pay 61 percent of the tax increase. Tuesday, however, she touted the high cost of providing library service as proof the increase was needed.

Lambert has previously argued the city has a fiscal responsibility to shave down every tax increase, especially in a year when the Salt Lake City School District plans to raise taxes.

But library system director Nancy Tessman said without the tax increase, she would have to cut services at the city's new downtown library and the five branch libraries throughout the city.

City leaders had thought they received a gift last month when property tax estimates from Salt Lake County came in $3.2 million higher than expected. But the revised figures from the county show the increase was only about $500,000 more than city bookkeepers thought.

The City Council, which has experience with county figures being different than expected, decided not to allocate much of the $3.2 million, instead putting the money into a sort of "rainy day" fund. Tuesday, the council erased that money from the fund to compensate for the new numbers.

That decline in property tax revenues also hit the library, which lost $500,000 from its $13 million budget when the numbers were recalculated, Tessman said.

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