Logan • Despite opposition from every mayor in the county, the Cache County Council approved a plan Tuesday to fund public safety by imposing a new sales tax that is typically used to fuel transportation projects.
As part of the county’s 2025 budget, council members voted unanimously to cover public safety costs by upping the county’s sales tax by 0.3 percentage points, a move that is expected to generate more than $6.5 million over nine months. After intense pushback from the county’s 19 mayors, however, the council ultimately agreed to use an unspecified amount of the revenue on roads.
The budget also includes a 12% property tax increase. The additional revenue, the county said, will address rising costs that had previously been covered with savings.
Ahead of the meeting, North Logan Mayor Lyndsay Peterson said she and her fellow mayors see necessary transportation projects go unfunded annually due to existing budget constraints on the county level.
“And we’re seeing that that list of transportation projects is getting longer and longer each year,” Peterson said. “As we complete projects, more come on the list that are even more urgent. As a mayor’s group, we’re concerned with the idea of reallocating transportation funds to public safety because those transportation funds are so needed.”
The sales tax the council imposed is typically used for transportation, but lawmakers this year passed legislation allowing smaller counties to use revenue from the tax for public safety expenses. That legislation, the coalition of mayors argued in an October letter, was driven largely by counties with few concerns about transportation.
In Cache County, however, transportation is a persistent issue.
“Cache County’s the only county in the state where, on a daily basis, we have more vehicle miles traveled” on local roads than state roads, said Jeff Gilbert, executive director for the Cache Metropolitan Planning Organization. “What that means is that the road system is pretty important to meet the travel demands, mostly because we don’t have a freeway here like other places do.”
The October letter also cites skyrocketing construction costs as a key reason many projects to improve the valley’s roadways remain unfunded.
In a joint statement, Logan Mayor Holly Daines and Peterson, the North Logan mayor, said while they are pleased by the county’s decision to use some revenue from the sales tax for transportation funding, they are concerned about the specific allocation of that money.
“We’re hopeful that the council will commence a dialogue with the mayors about the interests of the county residents we all represent,” the statement said. “We reiterate the importance of transportation funding in Cache County and hope the county will make long-term policy decisions that will remedy its budgetary shortfalls without reallocating crucial transportation funding.”
During the meeting, the council vowed to work with the mayors in the future to address transportation issues. The new tax goes into effect April 1.
