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Summit County weighs property-tax hikes, new tourism sales tax and fee changes to close 2025 gap
Summary
County finance director outlined four approaches to address an estimated FY2025 shortfall — do nothing and cut services, raise property taxes via truth-in-taxation, pursue a new rural-hospital (tourism-impact) sales tax, or expand fees — and asked the council for direction to prepare proposals and meet statutory timelines.
Matt Lehi, Summit County’s finance staff, told the council on May 1 that staff had identified four broad ways to close a potential revenue gap for fiscal 2025: do nothing and cut services, raise property taxes through the truth-in-taxation process, adopt one or more sales taxes that target tourism impacts, or make targeted fee changes and other adjustments.
Lehi said the county balanced the 2024 budget using fund balance and is projecting a substantially larger budget in 2025. “I could easily foresee our budget for 2025 being in excess of $90,000,000,” he told the council, citing inflation, additional mandated services and growing operating costs. He said a no-action route would require about $10 million in cuts and “would not be able to provide the same…
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