The Heber City Council unanimously approved a property tax increase and a $62 million budget for the coming fiscal year at its meeting Tuesday evening, August 20. That’s less than last year’s budget, which was just under $75 million.
With the new tax rate for 2025, homeowners will see their property taxes increase by just over 9%. The average home value in Heber is just under $500,000. For that home, owners will see a tax increase of about $18 over the course of the year.
A typical company pays about $32 more per year.
The additional tax revenue will cover a $278,000 budget deficit that city officials say is due to rising costs for services and the effects of inflation.
At Tuesday’s meeting, about 20 people were present to listen to the discussion, raise concerns and provide feedback. City council members and staff listened to comments and answered questions from citizens for over an hour before voting on the tax increase.
Heber resident Annie McMullen asked why the city is raising taxes instead of tightening the budget.
She told council members that Heber’s cost of living is quickly becoming prohibitive, especially for retirees and people on fixed incomes. She said that since she lost her husband, it has become increasingly difficult for her to make ends meet.
“Remember that a large part of the population here is aging,” she said. “Everything is piling up and I want to stay here, but I don’t know if that will be possible. I’ve lived in the city almost my whole life and it would be a shame if I had to be excluded through taxes.”
And she wasn’t alone. Local resident Linda Middleton also expressed concern that higher taxes would cause long-time residents to leave Heber.
“This is just another insult on top of all the other things that have come our way,” she said. “And if these developers can sell everything and lower our taxes, by then a lot of us retirees will have to move to Mississippi or somewhere where the taxes won’t crush us.”
Council member Aaron Cheatwood understood residents’ concerns, but said officials felt it was better to implement a gradual increase now than to impose an even larger increase in a few years that would be “crippling” for residents.
“I don’t want to hold out hope that we won’t need anything in the future and fall further and further behind and end up with an even bigger increase that will be even harder to bear,” he said. “I mean, I work, I’m young, I have children who are here and everything is more expensive. I understand what you mean by that.”
Councilwoman Yvonne Barney told residents that the city is trying to be frugal while managing tremendous growth.
And City Manager Matt Brower said officials are taking the cost of living seriously. He said they have combed through the budget and analyzed spending to keep the tax increase as low as possible.
“Unlike many cities, state governments and the federal government that do incremental budgeting — that is, they just take last year’s budget and increase it by a percentage — we start from zero,” he said. “So I think I can say with great confidence that we’re asking for a very small increase despite 40 years of high inflation. I think that really demonstrates what we’ve done to get costs under control as best as we can.”
The decision followed months of work on the budget. City leaders discussed spending priorities in January and revised the budget drafts at meetings in the spring and summer.
Detailed information on the newly adopted budget is available on the city’s website.
