Carbon County Commissioner Casey Hopes addresses attendees at the recent Business Expansion and Retention meeting.
BEAR Press Release
Carbon and Emery counties have a lot in common as they work toward the future. The challenges for each county may be somewhat different, but the future is in economic development.
That was the message from two county commissioners who spoke at the BEAR General Board Meeting on Jan. 18.
First to speak was Carbon County Commissioner Casey Hopes, who spoke largely about how the county is adapting to dropping tax revenues in the area. He went over the budget for the county for the year and explained how complicated government financing can be. He also spoke about all the different funds and accounts the county has and how things were handled last year.
“We want to be transparent about what we do,” he said. “That’s what these new accounting procedures we have initiated are intended to do.”
Carbon commissioners went through a dilemma last year because with the lower revenues they needed to either increase taxes or reduce the size of government. After some heavily attended public hearings where most of the speakers were against raising taxes, the commission decided to make some reductions. Hopes went over some of those changes.
“There has been a reorganization of the county and a consolidation of departments,” he said. “I want to go over these so that everyone understands what is going on.”
According to Hopes, the road shop has taken on the weed and mosquito abatement department. He said that is common practice in several counties in Utah. They are still two separate departments with their own employees, but now there is one director and the two departments have leads over each of them.
Maintenance for facilities that the county operates was put under the IT department “because they generate the tickets for work that needs to be done and it is tracked,” stated Hopes. He said that janitorial services for buildings was all put under IT as well.
Senior services, the senior centers in Price and East Carbon, only changed in that the meals that used to be cooked in East Carbon are now all cooked in Price and then delivered to East Carbon. He said that saved the county a fair amount of money because now services are not being duplicated and it also reduces the maintenance costs on equipment that was being used in East Carbon.
With recreation and the fairgrounds, they are now together with maintenance on the fairgrounds under recreation. Recreation is now one department with one lead.
One of the biggest changes took place in the county building itself when the commission eliminated separate management for economic development and tourism.
“We are working toward having one person head up those two departments,” he explained. “The two departments do largely the same job and a single director will better coordinate those two departments.”
But the county is also looking at another possibility and that is to hire a contracted service to do that job. He said that there are consultants out there that could manage it that might have more viable connections to business and tourism to help the county grow in those areas. He said they would make the decision soon about which direction they will go. He said even if a contractor is hired, the county will still have some employees involved as well.
Hopes also said they are also going through their planning and zoning processes, stream lining them where they can. Doing that will make it easier for businesses to come to the county, set up and get going.
He then talked about the future. He said he is optimistic because he sees businesses investing in the local community. He said that he sees with the change in leadership at the congressional level and in local communities, there are a lot of new and different ideas as well. He said he has already had multiple meeting with Congressman John Curtis and that Curtis has a lot of great ideas about how to help the area move on. Hopes pointed out too that the counties in the state are meeting with the governor and Carbon’s meeting is coming up soon. He said that the counties that have already met with him say that he is committed to helping the rural counties grow.
“However, Carbon cannot wait for the state or federal incentives to help us,” he said. “Curtis thinks that it is not new businesses that is going to come in and help the economy, but entrepreneurs and present businesses that will grow from within that will help the area.”
Next up was Kent Wilson, a commissioner from Emery County, who has been on the job four months. He is fulfilling the left over term of Keith Brady, who moved out of the area.
“Going through the budget process was daunting,” he stated. “Revenues are flat and costs are going up. In Emery, we cannot raise their taxes another penny because they are already at the legal maximum. That meant we had to prioritize things to balance the budget.”
Emery County has already had the meeting with the governor that Carbon County is waiting for and Wilson said he was encouraged.
“He wants to help rural Utah succeed but there is no formula where you can go up there and they will say they are going to do this, this and this for you,” said Wilson.
He said the county went to the meeting with four bullet points to talk about and one of them was education. He said the commission wants to have help in getting into Pathways because a college degree is not for everyone and there are various kinds of skill sets that are valuable out there.
“The county’s robotics program has over 200 kids involved,” he said. “That could be a Pathway. We also talked about energy.”
Wilson said that with the power plants eventually going away, now is the time to think about what is going to be done about that loss. He said Emery County needs to get ahead of it.
As for another economic development, he said Emery has a lot of land and a lot of water and that presently they could lease some industry 10,000 acre feet of water if they would come into the county.
“The county also has clean air, a good work force and a good educational system,” he said.
He also talked about the geography and how that relates to tourism. He said that he believes the 50 mile stretch through Emery of I-70 is the most beautiful stretch of Interstate 70 in America. Currently, they are getting tourism spillage from Moab and Goblin Valley, where attendance has doubled in the last two years. He also pointed out that Goblin Valley is being run more like a business that a government agency and that they while they have a $400,000 budget, they made $700,000 in revenues last year, which helps other state parks operate.
“That is what counties need to do and get into a more business frame of mind,” he said.
Talking about tourism, he said while there are a lot of great places to visit in Emery, they are kind of at a dead end road because people have to get off the main highways to get to most of the spots. He also said when they do come there is not enough motels for people to stay in. So, Emery is going to look at Airbnb. Right now, there are eight places that are on that website; a year and a half ago there were none, so it is improving.
“There are a lot of empty homes that could be used for vacation rentals,” he said. “There are also people that want to put in cabins for rentals. Particularly when it comes to big groups, Emery is overlooked for accommodations. Jordan Leonard (Economic and Tourism Director) has been tasked with trying to put something together on this.”
Green River, of course, is the exception to all that. Being located right on I-70 has really helped them and the county. He said that the county was thankful for all the revenue that comes from lodging and hospitality industry there.
Wilson said that bringing business is complicated by the high tax rate the county has. With it so high, it causes problems when businesses talk to them about moving there. A good example are some projects involving solar in the area. There is an request for proposals for wind and power for 2,000 megawatts that has been put out for the state.
One company has come to Emery and wants to do a $500 million investment. But Emery’s taxes are three times higher than Iron County and eight times higher than Washington County. In Iron County, if any project is built and it is for over 80 megawatts, the county gives a 70 percent abatement off of property taxes. Under 80 megawatts, they give a 50 percent abatement.
“Some Emery citizens who have paid their taxes for years wantsanyone else that moves in to pay their fair share,” said Wilson. “Others say give that abatement to get them to come to Emery County. It is a difficult situation.”
Even with the abatement in place, the new project would bring in $10 million over a 15 year period of time.
Another problem lies in the physics of generating power from photo voltaic solar panels when the area is compared with the southern counties. The farther north panels are installed the less efficient they are, so Cedar City has an advantage there too.
“The bottom line is that we have a lot of hope and plans for Emery County,” said Wilson. “The scenery and workforce there have a good future. A proper tax structure and some vision to do something is what needs to happen.”