Utah House and Senate divided over churches paying transportation fees

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah House and Senate are divided over whether churches should have to pay certain fees in the cities where they’re located.

This drama is playing out in the final few days of the legislative session – with dueling proposals from both chambers.

SB310, which cleared a Senate vote on Tuesday, would make religious organizations exempt from paying transportation utility fees, which help pay for road repairs. But HB454, which passed out of the House of Representatives on the same day, would leave churches on the hook for those fees.

For Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Highland – the sponsor of SB310 – the overall issue is important.

“It’s trying to put some guardrails around transportation utility fees, which cities are already doing,” Brammer told KSL TV. “This is meant to add some transparency and add some instances where you can and can’t use them.”

But the sticking point is churches.

In the House of Representatives earlier Tuesday, Rep. Karen Peterson, R-Clinton – who’s sponsoring HB454 – proposed what she called a “narrow exemption” for religious organizations, making their meetinghouses and administrative buildings free from any transportation utility fees.

“This is a compromise position,” Peterson told her fellow lawmakers.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a large landowner in the state, supported this. But many lawmakers did not.

“This is a particular problem for my city,” said Rep. Norm Thurston, R-Provo.

“The reality is that whenever we exempt somebody, the tax doesn’t go away,” Thurston said. “It gets just shifted onto everybody else.”

“This is one more exemption for one more fee, which means you and I will continue to pay more and more and more, while some of the largest landowners in this state will continue to pay less,” added Rep. Casey Snider, R-Paradise.

But the Senate feels differently. Senate President Stuart Adams told reporters Tuesday he strongly opposes any bill that leaves churches on the hook to pay those fees.

Brammer agreed.

“There’s all kinds of churches, especially throughout Salt Lake County, that have a positive impact on our society,” Brammer said. “One of the ways that we help that occur is we don’t impose taxes or, in some cases, fees on them to help them to be able to have that impact in our communities.”

The Senate and the House now have to figure this out. They could reach a compromise and pass it, or the issue could die altogether. The session ends on Friday.