It’s standard wisdom that it’s nearly impossible for states and localities to raise taxes. But in a session held at the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) National Conference on June 28, a panel showed just how that can be accomplished.

The panelists included leaders of the Salt Lake City Public Library in Utah; a partner with that city’s Pathway Group, and the finance director of the Metropolitan government of Nashville and Davidson County in Tennessee.

In Salt Lake City, the library was able to get a 20 percent increase in property taxes to help deal with financial pressures that endangered the high quality of the library system there. Meanwhile, Nashville Davidson was able to raise its local option sales tax from 2.25 percent to 2.75 percent, for an overall increase of over 22 percent.

The panel revealed some of the keys to these increases, perhaps the most important of which was getting the public to buy in to the idea that they were getting something of value back for their dollars, As Tyler Bahr, chief financial officer of the Salt Lake City Public Library explained to the audience, “We were really intentional about deep engagement with the community. . .  and so, when it came time to making our pitch for the tax increase, we were really informed by that kind of feedback and then sharing that strategy as well as the status of where we were with decision makers on an ongoing basis.”

Moreover, to cultivate trust in the community that this money had been well spent, “we thought it as incumbent on us to demonstrate added value to Salt Lake City residents if we were going to be seeking additional funds rather than the old same levels of service,” explained Bahr. Specifically, he noted that “we were really pleased to see that people checking out e-materials of physical materials increased by over 8 percent. . . and we had almost 12 percent in new signups for library cards.” 

One advantage that library leaders had was the strong support of Salt Lake City  residents, with 73% indicating in advance that they would support an increase. But” said Bahr, “even afterward, this last fall, after folks’ tax bill increase, that number actually went up to 87 percent of residents based on our polling. So, I think it just speaks to the value that we were able to demonstrate to Salt Lake City residents . . .  with the increased investment.”

In Nashville Davidson, meanwhile, there was an awareness that little had been done about spending on transit for decades, “so folks who live in town or are commuting to town. . .(had experienced) longer delays in traffic, traffic issues, getting from the airport to downtown, etc.” said Jenneen Reed, director of finance for the City of Nashville.

The additional dollars were intended to be spent on four things: sidewalks, traffic signals, beefing up bus service and increasing safety.

Two thirds of Nashville voters approved this plan in November of 2024, and the city started collecting the tax in February of 2025. It was continued in the most recent budget.

As was the case in Salt Lake City, Reed said that “the single most important factor I think for us was how do we engage in the community. Everyone in Nashville knew we needed something for transit. . .The mayor’s office, the finance team at that time, they did a beautiful job of executing community engagement. Not only did they go out and get what you would call the low-hanging fruit to support this like our Chamber, Rotary or downtown businesses, but they went out and did grass roots efforts. They held many community engagement opportunities where people could go and sit and ask questions so they could understand the plan and they could actually see themselves in the plan.”

The pitch was contained in something called the “Choose How You Move” program. “We leaned into that,” said Reed, “We wanted everyone to be able to see themselves in this transit plan. You could see yourself on a bike, biking into downtown. You could see yourself walking your dog on the new sidewalk that was going to be built. Or you could see yourself stopping at a transit stop and riding the bus into downtown, And then you could feel that you were going to be safe. So that’s how we got the plan (passed).”

In addition to Reed and Bahr, the other two panelists were Noah Baskett, CEO and Salt Lake City public library director and Holly Yocom, partner in the Pathway group, which worked with the library on the tax initiative. This panel was moderated by Barrett and Greene, Inc’s Richard Greene.

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