The claim

The city should own its utilities and its police

“Build a revenue source. Like owning your own utilities or owning your own police officers.”

Seen: Eagle Mountain City Tax Referendum Facebook group, August 2026.

Our finding Not accurate

The record contradicts it.

The city already owns its utilities, on a scale six times its general fund. And city-funded policing is exactly what the tax increase pays for: the same policy this post's opening sentence calls a cover story, though the city buys it under contract rather than employing it.

The numbers

City-owned utility fundswater, sewer, storm drain, solid waste, billing≈$269.7M

General fundFY2026–27$42.7M

Police officers employedpatrol contracted from the county0

What’s true

Both are sound instincts about municipal finance, and the second one is city policy. Eagle Mountain employs no police officers today: patrol is bought from the Utah County Sheriff's Office, and fire and ambulance come from Unified Fire Authority, which bills residents on a separate line of the same tax notice.

Where it goes wrong

The utilities half describes something that has been true for years. Eagle Mountain runs water, sewer, storm drain and solid waste as city-owned funds, plus an internal utility billing fund; in FY2026–27 those total roughly $269.7 million against a $42.7 million general fund: a gap that is mostly one year's borrowing, because the sewer fund alone jumps from $17.5 million to $217.5 million on the up to $230,000,000 of water and sewer revenue bonds the council authorized on February 17, 2026. The police half is the increase itself, and what it buys is a contract rather than a department. A post cannot call public safety a pretext in its first line and propose city-owned police as the alternative in its ninth.

More detail

Municipal utilities in Utah are also rate-funded enterprises, not general revenue: an enterprise fund charges users for the service and is expected to cover its own costs, which is why a water fund cannot subsidize a police department.

Where this comes from

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

The FY2026–27 fund summary, August 21, 2026Sewer Fund $217,460,999, Water Fund $46,056,578, Solid Waste $3,029,685, Storm Drain $2,302,938 and Utility Billing $814,728, against a General Fund of $42,650,441.Eagle Mountain City line items, FY2026–27 (ClearGov)

Resolution authorizing water and sewer revenue bondsAuthorizing the issuance and sale of not more than $230,000,000 aggregate principal amount of Water and Sewer Revenue Bonds, Series 2026. The agenda item read $220,000,000; bond counsel raised it to $230,000,000 on the record before the vote, to leave room to refinance.The vote, February 17, 2026

Utah County Sheriff's Office, briefing the council on the contractThe city's patrol coverage is bought under contract; the April session was the first of the meetings that led to the property tax proposal.The meeting, April 14, 2026 Read the transcript

More checks on police & fire

See all 21 fact checks →

Checked August 21, 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