West Valley City Debt

Today I have decided to tackle a difficult topic within this blog and hopefully shed some light on the City's current situation. Recent hardships during these tough economic times have in many ways been linked to individuals, institutions, and governments borrowing more money than they can afford. Therefore I have compiled some select City financial data to help assess the overall economic health of West Valley City and try to put it into perspective. Also as my role as Councilman and chairman of the West Valley City audit committee I feel that it is important to crunch through these numbers occasionally in order to be a wise steward of public dollars.

The appraised market value of West Valley City is pushing up close to ten billion dollars or about $77,000 of City infrastructure per resident. Individual property taxes have a rate of approximately 1.398% which over the years has helped in building and servicing the City. As a City we have an operating budget of around 67 million dollars. During the good years the City has been able to put some funds in a reserve account that currently has a balance just over 7 million dollars or 10.59% of the operating revenue. Currently I feel that this is an excellent amount of reserve funds, but unfortunately those funds will probably be called upon during the next couple of years to fill some holes within the budget due to lagging sales tax revenues. The goal would be to replenish these funds as soon as tax revenue generators like the renovated Valley Fair Mall start to bring in more shoppers and tax revenue and as the overall economy improves.

The total debt for West Valley City continues on a downward trend and is just over 109 million dollars. The annual debt service payments on the outstanding debt is around 8 millions dollars which is approximately 8% of the operating expenditures. Each resident's share of this calculated debt would be about $875 per person or about 5% of the average per capita income. This number might seem a little bit high until you remember that Utah has the lowest per capita income in the nation based on the fact that in comparison we have many more children in our population.

These relative strength of these numbers has helped the City achieve unusually high credit ratings which has saved us money in the long run. Having this information in mind is helpful in setting the priorities and goals of the City. We should strive to make our budgets lean and reduce debt while continuing the high levels of service and opportunities within West Valley City.

I hope that these facts and figures are insightful. As always please feel free to contact me with any comments, questions, or concerns: corey@coreyrushton.com