Roy petitioners get enough signatures to force vote on future of 34.25% tax hike

ROY — The contingent in Roy pressing for a referendum on the 34.25% property tax hike city leaders approved in August has gotten enough signatures in their petition drive to put the issue on the November ballot.

Weber County Clerk-Auditor Ricky Hatch said late Monday that the petitioners "met the requirements" to have a referendum on the property tax question placed on the Nov. 3 ballot. He oversees the Weber County election office, which processed the petitions and verified the authenticity of the signatures submitted.

As of Tuesday morning, the city hadn't made any sort of formal statement, but City Councilman Bryon Saxton said Tuesday that City Manager Matt Andrews had advised him, Mayor Ann Jackson and the other City Council members that the petition effort succeeded.

"I don't know what happens next other than the public's going to have the opportunity to vote on it," Saxton said.

Nancy Inman and several other Roy residents launched the drive, as allowed under state law, to put a referendum before city voters on whether the 34.25% property tax hike approved by the City Council on Aug. 11 should be kept or rescinded. Proponents said the increase is needed to boost city employees' pay to keep their wages in line with workers in other cities, but petitioners decried the hike as excessive, prompting their effort to seek a referendum.

They needed to gather the signatures of 1,786 registered voters in Roy, but the exact number they secured hasn't been publicly released. Inman hadn't received formal word from the city on the matter as of Tuesday morning and expressed dismay over the lack of communication.

"Because the ballots are going out today, and the referendum sponsors have not been notified that the referendum met the requirements, our citizens are not going to know whether or not they can vote on that referendum, Proposition 10. They're doing this on purpose," she said. Mail-in ballots to voters around Weber County and the rest of Utah were to go out starting Tuesday ahead of the end of balloting on Nov. 3.

Roy officials had initially been mulling a 54.9% tax hike, which would generate an extra $2.81 million, but scaled it back to the 34.25% increase in conjunction with plans to shift fire protection in the city to the Weber Fire District, a separate taxing entity. A 34.25% increase would generate an extra $1.75 million.

The City Council voted 4-1 last August for the hike and Saxton cast the sole vote against the increase. "I just felt like it was too much and too excessive and it (would) hurt a lot of people," he said.

At this stage though, with the issue on the ballot, Saxton said he doesn't plan to take an active role in the matter. "I feel like something like this is best left in the voters' hands," he said.

Neither Andrews nor Jackson immediately responded to KSL queries seeking comment.

Separately, the Roy City Council is holding a public hearing on Oct. 20 to consider "adjusting the compensation" for elected and statutory city officials and "executive officers." Saxton said he isn't sure what the meeting's purpose is.

"That being said, there is no way I'm giving myself any kind of pay increase, period," he said. "I think that, again, would create another issue that the City Council would have to address."

If voters ultimately vote to rescind the 34.25% tax hike, the city would have to reconfigure its 2026-2027 spending plan to account for the revenue the increase would have generated.

"It's going to make things busy for the council," Saxton said.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct a quote from Bryon Saxton about the tax increase.

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