Auditing Santaquin
The Ledger's review of Santaquin's budgets, audits, debt and redevelopment money.
The full audit section: stories by subject, key figures and records →
Background
Auditing Santaquin: What the city's audit and budget show
This series examines Santaquin's public financial records. The city's audited report for fiscal 2025 received a clean opinion with no findings. This explainer sets out its budget, reserves, debt and redevelopment agency from those records.
Read the explainer →Latest updates
- Politics
Santaquin adopted the certified tax rate after giving notice of a possible increase
A May 22 notice set a June 2 hearing on Santaquin's tentative budget and a proposed property tax increase. On June 16 the council instead unanimously adopted the certified rate of 0.001399, and the final budget's lines for a fire-department tax increase are zero.
- Politics
Santaquin's redevelopment agency runs on land-sale money, including $250,000 for the library
Santaquin's Community Development and Renewal Agency reported $3,253,219 from asset sales in fiscal 2025, and its only revenue was interest. Its fiscal 2027 budget plans $400,000 more in property sales and a $250,000 transfer toward the city's new library wing.
- Politics
Santaquin's General Fund is repaying a $3.6 million loan from the irrigation fund
A 2023 loan from Santaquin's pressurized irrigation fund to its capital projects fund had $3,282,102 outstanding at June 30, 2025. City budgets show the General Fund making the payments, at 1% interest, on a loan that runs through 2041.
- Politics
Santaquin's utility overhead charges to the General Fund nearly double in two budgets
Santaquin's water, sewer and irrigation funds paid the General Fund $1,075,000 in administrative overhead charges in fiscal 2025. The revised fiscal 2026 budget set those charges, now including storm drain, at $2,036,400, and the fiscal 2027 final budget sets them at $2,127,500.
- Politics
Sewer figures in Santaquin's 2025 audit narrative differ from its statements
The management's discussion in Santaquin's fiscal 2025 annual financial report gives sewer-fund results that do not match the audited statements in the same report. A supplementary schedule's totals column is also off by $49,205.
- Politics
Santaquin's water bond schedule is labeled 125% but shows 120%
In two straight years, the bond schedule in Santaquin's audit prints a 'Required 125%' line for the water fund whose dollar amount equals 120% of debt service. The auditor reported no known bond noncompliance, and the records reviewed do not show which percentage the bond agreements require.