Our Kane County elected officials are in the process of working with our state legislature to improve the quality of Utahn governance. I spoke with County Commissioner Celeste Meyeres, who is assigned to lead on legislative issues, to discuss the bills being worked on this session which most impact Kane County.
One such bill is H.B.300, which would substantially change our mail-in voting system to improve security. Ballots would still be sent out to every voter, however most voters, instead of mailing their ballot back in, would come to a polling place to return their ballot. Thus, all voters would need to show their ID when voting, rather than having their signature matched up to their ID by election officials. Most drop boxes would be eliminated under the bill. This bill is opposed in its current form by our commissioners, who prefer a version of the bill which would keep mail-in ballots but require voters to include the last four digits of their ID in the envelope by their signature to ensure security. This would be less expensive while still improving security.
Another bill introduced this session is S.B.197, which would slowly eliminate the “Circuit Breaker” program for low-income seniors. Circuit Breaker allows certain low-income seniors (along with veterans and some other groups) to pay less taxes on their property than the average Utahn. The bill would set up a tax deferment program to replace Circuit Breaker, which would still require someone to pay the taxes in full — not at the reduced rate — but would allow the senior or their heir to do so at a later time. The bill is estimated to save the state money by raising tax revenue, but our commissioners oppose it due to the harm it would cause low-income seniors in the county.
H.B.48 is a bill that was on track to pass as of last week and which was covered in Southern Utah News at that time. H.B.48 seeks to address risk around wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs) by imposing a fee on WUI properties. The bill would also allow insurers to raise rates on “high risk” WUI properties. Since a high proportion of Kane County properties are WUI properties, this bill would have a significant impact on life in the area. All counties but one have signaled opposition to H.B.48. The bill has nevertheless passed the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate, where its opponents are hoping that it’ll be amended to fix its flaws. Potential changes include making the fee apply exclusively to new builds or scale with the taxable assessed value of the property.
Our own Representative Logan Monson has introduced H.B.421, which would require the state to obtain permission from a local land use authority, among other bodies, when purchasing grazing allotments. There has been significant concern around the practice of certain environmentalist groups purchasing grazing allotments with the purpose of retiring them by sitting on them forever. These practices reduce the total number of grazing allotments available for use in Kane County, with the effect of slowly restricting our ability to ranch. Representative Monson’s bill would ensure that local land use authorities, such as the county, have a say in who purchases grazing allotments.
Finally, Commissioner Meyeres shared that a bill is in the works to increase flexibility around uses of the transient room tax (TRT). At present, TRT is allowed to be spent only on certain uses in certain quantities. For instance, a little over half of TRT can be spent on mitigating the impacts of tourism, while no TRT whatsoever can be spent on fire prevention measures. In counties like Kane County which are heavily reliant on tourism to sustain their economy — a condition exacerbated by the shutdown of other industries such as mining and logging — TRT makes up a significant portion of the county’s tax revenue, meaning that there are more restrictions on the way we use our taxes versus, say, Salt Lake County. The bill that is in the works would loosen things up to equalize the playing field between Kanab and the rest of the state.
This work by our county commissioners is essential to ensure that the state legislature is responsive to the needs of Kane County’s citizens and that new legislation improves the quality of governance here, rather than causing harm. We will report further once more bills have moved forward.
