House committee backs school board referendum amendments after timing questions
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Summary
The House Revenue and Taxation Standing Committee advanced a substitute for HB 170 that clarifies expedited referendum timing for local tax laws and differentiates school tax laws; Granite School District warned accelerated timelines may not give taxpayers time to learn about and pay new levies before year-end tax bills.
The House Revenue and Taxation Standing Committee on Feb. 3 unanimously adopted a substitute to HB 170 and voted to pass the bill out of committee with a favorable recommendation after the sponsor said the measure clarifies accelerated referendum timing for local tax laws.
Representative Shipp, sponsor of HB 170, told the committee the bill makes explicit that election officers may conduct a local tax-law referendum entirely by mail and that once a referendum qualifies for the ballot ballots are mailed to voters within 30 days. "Voters get to decide the local tax law referendum within 30 to 60 days after the referendum qualifies for the ballot," Shipp said, explaining that the election is then conducted on the first business day that is at least 30 days after ballots are mailed.
The bill’s substitute also corrects language to differentiate between a local tax law and a local school tax law, the sponsor said. Shipp said the measure preserves a route for voters to challenge local tax decisions while noting that school boards can avoid a referendum by winning a supermajority on the board.
Todd Haber, business administrator for Granite School District and legislative liaison for USBO, testified in public comment that the accelerated timetable may still be too compressed for taxpayers under the state’s truth-in-taxation calendar. "There's almost no response time to be able to notify the public of what the actual tax burden will be on those tax notices and then allow them the ability to pay the tax within the fiscal year," Haber said, noting that boards’ actions to increase taxes must be conducted by Sept. 1 and tax bills are due Nov. 30.
Representative Strong moved to adopt the first substitute and later moved that the committee favorably recommend HB 170 (first substitute). Both motions passed unanimously on voice votes; individual roll-call votes were not recorded in the transcript.
The committee’s action forwards HB 170 to the next stage with a favorable recommendation. The committee recorded no amendments beyond the adopted substitute; staff and sponsor indicated they would continue to monitor statutory interactions identified during the committee discussion.