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Utah County may be ready to relinquish control of its 911 dispatch center, but so far Mapleton City it not on board with the idea.
Mapleton Mayor Laurel Brady said her small town of 7,000 residents will see a huge tax increase if voters approve the plan to move to a special service district. The district would include the county and its cities as members, excluding Pleasant Grove, Orem, Provo and Springville, which have their own systems. The county would save hundreds of thousands of dollars in the deal, while rates would increase for the cities. Instead of a flat fee-per-call rate for cities, residents would have a new property-based tax to fund the system.
Brady said she does not support the plan because of its cost to taxpayers. Cities now pay $15.50 per call.
"It transfers the burden from the city's budget to the homeowners," she said.
Small cities like Mapleton may see a larger increase in what they contribute to the system because only a small number of emergency calls come from the town, while larger cities may have had higher numbers of calls. Brady said Mapleton residents will also shoulder more of the burden because the median home price in the city is nearly $400,000.
"The theory is that if you have a higher value home, you have more money," she said.
Whether or not the residents have more money, Brady said no one wants higher taxes, especially for a little-used service. Brady said she would prefer a rate increase for calls rather than a new tax so that her city will not be left paying higher amounts than cities that use the service more.
"I don't mind paying for a service we're using, and I don't mind paying what it costs," she said.
Brady said Mapleton residents will be paying four times as much for the service if the special service district is approved, a plight similar to other small towns. Even as the town grows, she said she does not see the costs evening out to those of other cities.
The new system will provide some benefits, such as more input from individual cities. However, Brady said she does not know that more input will mean better service. Instead, each city's input may conflict with others and cause problems.
"I don't know that that's a big enough positive to go to so much work to make a change," she said.
Although Mapleton is not in favor of the possible dispatch changes, many other cities in the county are. Brady said the change does not hurt the city's budget, and some cities may need a different service.
"Every city looks at it from their own perspective," she said.
Barry Edwards, Highland City Administrator, said many north Utah County cities have been looking into a special service district for some time. Now that the county does not want to offer dispatch services, Edwards said cities have little choice.
Edwards said a big benefit of a dispatch district will be the input cities will have. Police and fire chiefs will have the opportunity to work with the dispatch and decide what works best.
"We want to be able to have input into the protocol and we want to have that accountability," he said.
Highland residents will also see a large increase to pay for the service, but Edwards said the benefits will far outweigh the costs. Small cities may end up paying more, but Edwards said Highland is taking its fair share of the cost.
"Percentage-wise, I doubt that anyone is paying higher than we are," he said. "It's expensive to dispatch."
Payson city manager Rich Nelson said the new dispatch plan will be more fair than what is currently in place. Some cities have fewer calls than others, but other cities may have more calls than their town's population would normally produce.
"We have a big hospital in the city, so we get a lot of calls associated with that hospital that we normally wouldn't," he said.
All the cities in the county are growing, and Nelson said the new plan is a good way to prepare for that growth.
"I really don't look at it as a short-term up and down as much as it's a needed service," he said. |
