Rocky aims to hire 44

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson wants to add more than 40 people to the city's payrolls and proposes to pay for those positions by raising property taxes and using windfalls from building permit fees and sales tax collections.

Anderson proposed 44 staffing positions Tuesday night to the City Council in his $190 million budget.

Several departments would split the staffers, but Anderson particularly suggested 13 additional police department employees — eight officers, a sergeant, two crime lab technicians and two people to replace officers now in administrative positions. The mayor asked the council to raise property taxes by $940,000 to pay for the police department positions.

The total proposed property tax increase for a $190,000 house in Salt Lake City would be around $38 a year, said Steve Fawcett, the city's budget director.

The property taxes would go toward the new police officers ($940,000), a voter-approved bond for open space and The Leonardo cultural and arts center ($1.2 million), money in case the city is sued ($1.1 million) and compensation for previous low tax rates ($1.3 million).

At least one council member wasn't thrilled about the proposed property tax increases. Council Chairman Dave Buhler said he would like the city to pay for the police officers without hiking taxes, which is what the City Council managed to do last year.

"We already have to raise taxes for voter-approved bonds, so without anything more, we have a small property tax increase," Buhler said. "We'll take a very close look, but I'd like to increase the number of officers without increasing property taxes."

Anderson's speech Tuesday night opens budget season for the City Council, which must settle on the city's finances for the coming fiscal year by the end of June. The mayor's proposals are subject to revision by council members, who can take some, none or all of his suggestions as they hash out the budget in meetings over the next several weeks.

The mayor's budget uses a $2.5 million increase in the city's share of sales taxes and $2.9 million more in building permit fees to fund many of the suggested staff positions. The city, which splits sales tax money with the state and Salt Lake County, has more sales tax money — primarily from durable goods and large-ticket retail items such as cars, Fawcett said.

The city collected 63 percent more money in building permit fees over the previous year from a boom in construction in the city. Additionally, Salt Lake City had around $10.7 million more tax money from economic growth, Fawcett said.