The claim

Every dollar of the increase goes to public safety

“Every dollar of the increase goes straight to public safety.”

The city's own claim, not one aimed at it. Seen: City messaging, quoted back to the council at the August 6 hearing.

Our finding Accurate, but incomplete

True as far as it goes, and it leaves out something that changes the picture.

True in the schedule's own terms: the levy is smaller than the Sheriff's contract, so there is no second dollar to allocate. What it left out is that the money largely replaces sales tax already paying that contract, and frees the sales tax for other things.

The numbers

Sheriff's contractthe affected budget on the schedule$9,798,139

Rise in the contractover the no-change budget$1,507,939

Raised at 0.000900leaving ≈$4.61M on sales tax≈$5.19M

What’s true

The statutory impact schedule names the Sheriff's contract as the affected budget and puts it at $9,798,139: the same figure, to the dollar, as the proposed property tax revenue. Designed that way, the levy covers the contract and nothing else.

What it leaves out

What actually changes is which pot pays. Property tax takes over a contract sales tax had been subsidizing, and the freed sales tax goes to other city spending: parks, roads, staff. That is a defensible policy and it is not what "every dollar goes to public safety" conveys, which is why residents who did the subtraction, $6.74 million noticed against a $1.5 million rise in the contract, concluded they had been lied to.

More detail

At the rate finally adopted the gap runs the other way and is larger. 0.000900 raises about $5.19 million against a contract of $9,798,139, so roughly $4.61 million of the Sheriff's contract still comes out of sales tax, four times what the repealed rate would have left short.

Where this comes from

Every finding here is drawn from an open-meeting recording or a published document. Check it yourself.

“The affected budget, sheriff's contract. The proposed budget is $9,798,139. The budget with no tax change is $8,290,000, and the budget change would be $1,507,939.”

Mayor Jared Gray, reading the scheduleQuoted as read. The schedule's own figures do not quite reconcile ($9,798,139 less $8,290,000 is $1,508,139), and the recording carries the last of them as “$1,507,000. $939”.The meeting, August 6, 2026 Read the transcript

“When we say that 100% of the property tax increase goes to public safety, that is the correct answer. What we need to do is help you understand — and this means we didn't communicate this well enough — how public safety has been paid… we're essentially robbing from sales tax to help subsidize our police.”

A councilmember, in the open deliberationSaid after about 03:42, where the chair stops introducing anyone and the transcript is left unlabeled, so it is quoted here without a name. The meeting summary reads the passage as Councilmember Whiting's.The meeting, August 6, 2026 Read the transcript

“Eagle Mountain City is proposing a property tax increase with every dollar going straight to public safety, period. So that's a lie, and we all know that now.”

Duncan Searcy, resident, quoting the cityThe meeting, August 6, 2026 Read the transcript

More checks on property tax

See all 21 fact checks →

Checked August 19, 2026. Nothing goes on the fact-check list unless an open-meeting recording or a published document can settle it: the rules. Spot a mistake? civicrollcall@gmail.com