Salt Lake City‘s latest yearly spending plan is flat and has no planned tax increases — a function, Mayor Erin Mendenhall said, of the challenging times in the world.
Mendenhall used words like “steady” and “reliable” in proffering her new budget blueprint Tuesday evening, proposing $512 million in general fund spending on a wide range of city programs, nearly 6.7% more than the year before.
While pushing ahead with investments on public safety, employee wages, street repairs and affordable housing, she told the City Council this spending plan “is a nearly entirely flat budget” — born of the economic uncertainty faced by residents.
“Stock markets are volatile. Prices are increasing. Tariffs are fluctuating. The consumer sentiment index is in decline,” the mayor said. “I am committed to not increasing the burden our residents are already feeling due to federal pressures and global economic headwinds.”
Some residents, however, will face hikes in their utility bills starting in July as the city restructures its rates for water, sewer, stormwater and streetlights. The mayor said low water users would face about a $10 a month increase along with a new $3-a-month waste charge for most residential bins.
The plan’s 6.7% increase was driven “almost entirely” by inflation and rising costs of maintaining services and facilities — with the only expansion in spending coming for key elements of the city‘s new approach to public safety.
The City Council will now embark on a two-month review toward formally adopting the budget by the end of June.
Council members say their main budget goals are: coping with the city‘s growth, enhancing public safety, funding ongoing maintenance, building financial reserves and supporting local businesses and homeless services.
Tax hike? Not this year
Now in her sixth budgeting cycle since coming to office in 2020, Mendenhall said the latest plan is balanced and dodges the need for a property tax increase — at least not this year.
Looking ahead to the prospect of a tax hike in 2026, the mayor said, “it’s unlikely we will be able to meet the demands of a growing city without one.”
City departments this time around, she said, “have dug deep — consolidating, cutting costs and finding creative ways to do more with less” to avoid the need for a tax increase.
“This budget leaves no stone unturned,” Mendenhall said, “when it comes to keeping our residents safe, lowering costs and finding creative solutions to even the most complex obstacles.”
Public safety
While crime is down from last year, Mendenhall said she remains focused on enacting her 27-point public safety plan released in January. Eight of those goals have been met in the past four months — while this latest budget would fund completion of seven more — to the tune of about $3.9 million in proposed funding.
Nearly $550,000 of that would be for crime-monitoring technology, including drones. Another $500,000 would pay for new overnight security in seven city parks as well as the west side’s International Peace Gardens and along the Jordan River Trail.
That’s along with $5.2 million for new police, fire and street maintenance vehicles the council is now considering as part of an amendment to the current year’s budget.
Another major chunk of money will go to a new Clean City Team, assigned to address graffiti, abandoned properties, litter, poor light and other circumstances considered conducive to crime. They will focus on North Temple and the Jordan River Trail.
Five new city positions needed to create the cleanup squad are the only new jobs added by this year’s budget.
“Our residents have spoken,” Mendenhall said, “and we are acting with urgency when it comes to both the safety and beauty of our city.”
New Police Chief Brian Redd, the mayor said, is under orders “to use all means necessary to eradicate drug dealing from areas along the trail, North Temple, and nearby parks — and to root out the criminals who prey on the most vulnerable among us.”
West side
The mayor said that with its long history of financial neglect, the west side remained a top priority, with $2.7 million in targeted investments in this budget.
That includes $680,000 in capital improvements to the Rose Park Lane Trail to make it more accessible and add 100 trees along the path. There is also $400,000 in improvements to Fisher Mansion, with a view to finding a tenant for the historic site along the Jordan River.
The budget has $2.3 million for safety improvements along Redwood Road, 900 West and 800 South.
For a sixth year running, city crews will also plant 1,000 additional trees on the west side.
Parks
Mendenhall is proposing $3 million for a first phase of the Green Loop, a roughly $300 million plan for turning five miles of city-owned rights of way along 200 East, South Temple, North Temple, 900 South and 500 West into a looping, interconnected green corridor.
That ties in, she said, with improvements to the segment of 200 East between Salt Lake City‘s Main Library and City Hall into what is being called the Civic Center.
The vision there, the mayor said, is to create a more suitable venue for hosting events such as the finish line for the Salt Lake City Marathon, Living Traditions and, ultimately, visitors to the 2034 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
“Imagine how much more connected those events will feel,” she said, “when 200 East is no longer a wide expanse of asphalt, but a seamless flow of pathways and gathering spaces.”
Housing and wages
Similar to spending in past years, this budget pumps about $5 million into promoting affordable housing in Utah’s capital, but Mendenhall said the funds would be targeted this time at encouraging deeper affordability, suitable for residents making less than a third of average wages.
“Because we know that when housing becomes unattainable for our lowest-income neighbors,” she said, “the consequences ripple across our entire community.”
The city recently signed a new contract with its police union that calls for 7% raises in base pay effective next month. Her latest spending plan also calls for a 4% cost-of-living adjustment for workers not represented by one of three unions that currently negotiate on behalf of city employees.
For all union workers — police, firefighters and other government employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — the mayor said she put faith in a pending referendum to restore collective bargaining rights for government employees.
“I am optimistic,” she said, “that voters will get the chance to reinforce to the Legislature that unions are good for working families.”