Believes county should be careful with budget
01-24-2019
I am writing in regard to the article in the Sanpete Messenger dated December 20th, concerning the county commission raising the property tax to meet the county budget.
We can all agree that many of these expenses were not necessary; most notably, $943,000 for the new jail and the untold amounts for the new courthouse.
Most citizens voted for Trump (even if doing so doesn’t work) with the mindset and hope that government, in general, can turn a profit and earn money from the jail and other ventures, rather than pour money into it.
We must remember that the county also lost $40,000 in a scam, and poured even more money into a resolution in order to salvage what they could.
The county, in the article, also went on to say that they must meet payroll for government workers; however, if the county should bring in new business, the county would not need to employ as many workers because people could work for private companies.
But let us be optimistic here. Let us give the Sanpete County Commission the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure that now the county is solvent again and the debts are paid off, we can agree that next year the property tax will once again be lowered to a reasonable rate… right?
Jeff Kunz
Mt. Pleasant, UT
Editor’s Note: A few statements in the letter need to be clarified. Sanpete County did wire $37,850 to an out-of-state bank account in response to a fraudulent email. However, the bank involved refunded some of the money, and a county insurance policy covered the rest. In the end, the county lost nothing.
The county has not put any money into a new courthouse. The courthouse is a state project directed and funded entirely by the state.
The county spends about $1 million per year in bonds to payoff the construction costs of the Sheriff’s Complex, which includes the jail and Sheriff’s Office.
However, in 2018, the county brought in $1.65 million from the state and federal government for housing state and federal inmates in the jail. The county gets addition income from leasing space in the complex to the Utah Division of Adult Probation and Parole and Utah Highway Patrol.
