Q&A: Commissioner Skyler Beltran focused on Utah County taxes, safety and transportation
- Utah County Commissioner Skyler Beltran is sworn in to office Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, at the Historic Utah County Courthouse in Provo.
- This undated photo shows Utah County Commissioner Skyler Beltran.

Courtesy Utah County Government
Utah County Commissioner Skyler Beltran is sworn in to office Monday, Jan. 6, 2025, at the Historic Utah County Courthouse in Provo.
Skyler Beltran has a background similar to many who are putting rapidly growing Utah County on track to match the population of Salt Lake County by 2065.
The 32-year-old California native attended Utah Valley University, got married, settled down in Lehi and is raising two boys.
He’s an avid Brigham Young University sports fan who most recently jumped on the Utah Hockey Club bandwagon, with paraphernalia of the team’s inaugural season scattered around his office.
As the newest member of the Utah County Commission, Beltran will play a critical role in shaping the path of the transforming community he’s a part of.
“We have a unique setup,” Beltran said. “Commissioner (Amelia Powers) Gardner is the first woman on the commission ever in Utah County. From my short research, I’m the youngest commissioner this county has ever seen. And so those are two lived experiences that help our community. We’re a very young community in Utah County — the youngest (in Utah) — and Provo’s the youngest city, and those people have lived experiences that I can relate to.”

Courtesy Utah County Government
This undated photo shows Utah County Commissioner Skyler Beltran.
Beltran is a former online editor of the Lehi Free Press who has served on the Utah County Planning Commission and the Utah County Board of Adjustment, and was the chairman of the Utah County Republican Party.
He joined the commission on an interim basis in September, then started his four-year term Jan. 6. He recently sat down with the Daily Herald to discuss his vision for the term ahead.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How did your experience as a copy editor at the Lehi Free Press shape your perception of local politics?
A: “The challenge with the government is informing the public. People tend to only know the negatives or the decision itself, but there’s so much detail and work before it gets to that point. I learned when I wrote that it’s so important the public gets as much information as they can so they can understand how that decision was made, and by who, and what prompted it. Sometimes, one news story of the actual action doesn’t convey that. So I think it really helps me. When we’re doing something, I’m all about public transparency. I want to ask questions in public meetings so that people know. I want to be able to be an open book. I don’t want the action to be the only thing the public knows about.”
Q: You have had three months to get your feet wet and learn what the job is really like. What have you learned in that time period?
A: “I took the first three months to figure out the lay of the land and meet people. I was able to go to almost every department that we have in the county, to go and meet with their department head, meet their staff, see what their day-to-day (schedule) looks like. … That allowed me to kind of get a jump-start on the budget. That was not an ideal time for me to jump in, 70 days before we needed to vote on a tax increase in next year’s budget. So I tried to meet as many people as I could in the organization and tried to figure out who does what, and made sure I had the groundwork laid out for when we can start working on the next year’s budget.”
Q: Speaking of the budget, you abstained from the vote (to approve the 2025 budget). … What needs to be done to be able to balance it going forward without drastically raising property taxes?
A: “I dove in as best I could in that short period of time. We had 311 requests for new expenditures. So that’s a lot of requests from a lot of different departments. And so I was able to get a good grasp on those new expenditures. … In my proposed budget, it would have had a tax increase. Not as high as what we did; I disagreed with the amount, as I expressed to my other two commissioners. … There’s two ways to pay our bills: economic activity — so, increase sales tax — or property tax. And so that’s the only two ways we can do that. So the balance needs to be economic growth. But we also have to identify the way truth-in-taxation works. There is no automatic inflationary increase, and so we do have to have increases once in a while. To this extent, it was too much, but we’ve only had one tax increase in the last 25 years. And so the argument could be, we might not have been stewardly handling tax increases the right way.”
Q You are over the county attorney’s office … How are you working to properly finance the department?
A: “I have a good working relationship with (County Attorney) Jeff (Gray). Jeff ran on (being) tough on crime, and the voters overwhelmingly supported that. And that comes with a cost. So, Jeff’s office has filed more misdemeanor and felony charges than years previous, and voters wanted that. So when the voters want that, we have to support it and fund it, and the voters ask for that, and he’s delivering that.
“He needed four new attorneys, and they added a court down here in our district court. And so in order for him to efficiently run his office, he needs an attorney in all of these different courts. And so that was a big reason he needed additional staff as well. But he also thinks that this is going to get his department a good amount (of attorneys) for a couple years.”
Q: Did you see the letter County Sheriff Mike Smith co-signed with the governor and the other sheriffs addressing immigration?
A: “I did, and we put out a letter on the commission maybe a month ago as well supporting the governor’s efforts and Sheriff Smith’s efforts for handling illegal immigration. We’re optimistic that with the change of administration to President Trump that we will be able to see some significant and much-needed changes. Things don’t happen overnight, but we have good optimism, and Sheriff Smith does a great job of navigating the politics and state laws and navigating that process very well, because it’s a frustration for us all. We have got to get it under control. We see multiple illegal immigrant arrests every week here in Utah County. We have multiple of them in our jail, and the current system of not being able to remove them from the country has just not been good for our community, for taxpayers, for law enforcement, and we’re optimistic to see some good changes.”
Q: One thing you ran on was transportation and addressing the growth in Utah County. What are some policies and plans the commission can implement transportation-wise?
A: “I’d say our No. 1 issue for the public is transportation. We all feel it every day, some more than others, depending on where you are in the valley. But transportation absolutely is at the forefront of every decision that we make. It is a very collaborative effort. No one organization can solve transportation, but the county, the cities, the state, federal funds as well, from our federal delegation; it’s utilizing and planning all those resources the best we can. We as a county commission are a member of (the Mountainland Association of Governments), and MAG does a lot of good regional projects and prioritizing, so that’s a way to influence. We also just got from the state a massive $1.4 billion investment in northern Utah County for the Eagle Mountain, Saratoga and Lehi area. And so it’s working with our state and federal delegation to acquire those dollars and bring them here.
“In my personal opinion, the state and county and MAG and all of us need to prioritize high-growth areas, areas where they’re taking the brunt of growth are seeing quality of life decreases.”
Q: After being in this role for a few months, do you feel like the three-person commission is equipped to handle all its responsibilities?
A: “Being in this for three months, I’m not sure of what I feel is the right (way) yet, but I probably have changed a couple of my perspectives. I’ve always been against a mayor-council form. I do not support a mayor-council form. If you see Salt Lake County, the mayor’s office continues to balloon. They have millions of dollars in staff for the mayor alone. It’s continuing to grow at an unsustainable rate, and I do not like that model. I ran on the idea that I would probably be good with five part-time commissioners, which I still think is a possible option. But in my three months’ experience, I’m leaning towards actually those five should be full time, because as a principle of governance, I don’t like more power and decision making going to staff than it does to elected officials. And when we move elected officials to a part-time role, we just, by nature, delegate a lot of authority and power to unelected bureaucrats.”
Q: What are you personally hoping that you can achieve overall as a commissioner?
“I saw this open seat as an opportunity to do good in the county. I’ve been very involved; I’ve covered politics in the county for many years. I have good relationships with a lot of people, and I thought that my services would be well fit in this position.
“As far as an overall vision for four years, it’s to keep the tax as low as we can. Tax burden to the public is very important to me, because five or six bucks a month may not matter to a majority, but it absolutely matters to those in poverty. It matters to senior citizens on fixed income.
“Public safety is a big thing over the next four years. As we continue to see growth, we absolutely need to maintain public safety. And that’s what makes Utah County very unique is we’re a very safe place. We hold our society to a higher standard than I’d say other places do, and we don’t tolerate crime, and so that’s important that we maintain that culture of a safe community.
“Tax burden, public safety and transportation, I’d say, is what I would like to see improved in the next four years.”