Perhaps the lack of snow is just what we needed

In some ways I hate property taxes. A property tax means you don’t truly own your property. If you don’t pay your property tax, your house is taken away. The flip side is that property taxes provide a stable source of revenues for our city, county, and schools. So we understand why they are instituted, especially with what is coming down the pike.

What is coming down the pike is a reduction in sales tax and transient room tax. As they say, you live by the sword and you die by the sword.

I had family in town over the Christmas Holiday. I guarantee you they haven’t gone back to Chicago and told their friends how great Park City skiing is. I would imagine, they are not alone. The lack of snow is going to impact MLK, Presidents’ Day, and spring break bookings. It’s also going to impact next Christmas as folks are going to be wary about coming during the early season, next year.

During a recent County Council meeting, County Manager Tom Fisher said he feared another recession (as he probably should). It doesn’t look like a recession’s on the books… but this could impact us similarly. The problem is that the government has expanded our services based (partially on these taxes). The Summit County budget has increased dramatically over the past few years (0ver 30%), while population growth has not.

No snow = No revenue

We hope that Park City Municipal and Summit County have planned for this day.

Summit County Sales tax is about 15% of the budget. So, if that gets cut by 25%, that’s about a 2 million dollar reduction in the budget. Park City is funded by sales tax and transient room tax. That is more than 25% of their $100 million dollar budget. If sales taxes were down 25%, that would be a $6 million shortfall. Who knows if the overall shortfall would be 25%. Will bookings be decreased by 25%? Maybe. I could see that.

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