S.B. 279 State Homeless Campus Neighbor Tax Credit: transcript

Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, Feb 17, 2026

1. Committee chair1:25:12

   Uh, we're gonna move on to the third item on our agenda. Senate Bill 2 79. There's an amendment for state with an amendment, uh, to be made, uh, state homeless campus neighbor tax credit. We're running low on words. We need to get a few more words in there. Senator Escamilla, it's getting late in the session.

2. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:25:29

   I'm probably a little too punchy, but here we are.

3. Committee chair1:25:32

   Uh, thank you Mr. Chair. The time is yours.

4. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:25:35

   Thank you. Um, I just came from another committee where murdering was happening, so like, like it's brutal over there. Um,

5. Committee chair1:25:44speaker not certain

   Is it a house committee? No. Oh. Oh, well, there you Go. It happens. Okay.

6. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:25:49

   So the state homeless campus neighbor tax credit, it's a, a opportunity to address, um, you know, the possibilities of having really large homeless services campuses in multiple communities. And this is in response to, uh, my district. So in, during the fall of, uh, 2025, they made an announcement. Uh, the advisory board, uh, within the Homeless Advisory Board made an announcement that they have decided to build a 1300 bed facility in the west side of Salt Lake City. You can imagine both, um, Representative Hollins and myself as the, uh, legislators representing those districts. We spent a lot of time with our constituents. It was very painful to see the concerns, um, people crying. There was no process open process for this conversation. It was just, um, mnt domain situation. So, uh, here we are, Mr. Chair asking for a process, and there's three bills that we are working on related to addressing some concerns of representation, accountability, and transparency. When it comes to a large facility like a 1300 bed, one of the things I heard very clearly from my constituents is, one, we wanna help. We've always opened the doors of our district who helping communities in need. We also house the, the state prison, 3,500 bed state prison. And, um, the idea that this was gonna come also to our community, we wanted to have some very clear pieces attached to it. As you probably all recall, because I think you guys were here before, uh, we had Operation Rio Grande, and that operation taught us a lot of things, aside from a very costly process to, um, try to mitigate what was happening in downtown Salt Lake City. All of that stuff was pushed to the west side, um, west of I 15. Uh, we were still addressing that process, but one of the things we learned is there was a lot of crisises happening and nothing was there to mitigate again, impact. So this bill, what it does, it says, look within a radius of one mile, if the facility, if when with the amendment. So I'm speaking now with that amendment. Um, if the amendment passes, if a facility's larger than 500 beds, then within, um, because you know, we, the one that was proposed was 1300 beds. So just keep that in mind that the, um, neighbors within one, um, one mile radius will receive a, um, you know, property, uh, tax property adjacent to homeless services of one mile. We'll be, uh, receiving 50% of their property taxes, uh, non-refundable tax credit for that. So that's what the bill does is pretty straightforward. But the amendment will put a number into the, the facility of 500, um, beds at a minimum if they will end up receiving this non-refundable tax credit. I'm open for questions or make the motion, I guess I'm in committee, so I love to make a motion that we, um, accept substitute number one, amendment number one. I apologize, amendment number one under my name. Okay. Which is, like I said, it clarifies the number of vets that will be in place.

7. Committee chair1:29:16

   Okay, great. Um, Senator Esee has made the motion to adopt Amendment one, which is available online for Senate bill 2 79. Uh, it does add the 500 year-round beds and has to be constructed after a certain time period, which was January one. Um, anyway, so that, uh, that amendment is in order or that motion's in order. Any discussion of that motion? Senator Brammer?

8. Sen. Brady Brammer1:29:41

   Yeah. Um, is there anything that will, uh, constructed isn't really defined as far as when it begins or when it ends? Are there any fac which facility are you talking about? Or are there any else that would be captured in this?

9. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:29:54

   Um, no. Right now it's just the one that was announced by the, um, homeless Advisory Board on the northwest quadrant of Salt Lake City. And that is a 1300 bed facility.

10. Sen. Brady Brammer1:30:04

    Let me ask you this, um, why not just say that facility's name?

11. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:30:09

    Because this means that in the future, any facility that gets built that has 500 beds now has this, that goes into it all over. Yeah. It has to be a homeless service campus. Yeah. But if there's another homeless service campus that's built now, this bill does the same thing for that one and we don't get to look at it. Yeah, and that's, that's a great question. Um, Mr. Tara was trying to be equitable in the sense of if anyone is gonna have a 500 bed facility in their district, I think that one mile radius will be very directly impacted if it's the homeless service campuses that we are discuss by description, by definition here. So I, I mean, I, I have, I'll say this, my number one priorities, obviously addressing my district, I'm being very transparent, but I felt it was important that maybe this will end up somewhere else as well. And I didn't, you know, I wanted to be fair on the policy.

12. Sen. Brady Brammer1:31:03

    Let me, let me give you a, a scenario if that's all right. Chair. Um, let's say that I have a high rise in downtown Salt Lake and a lot next to it, and I own both of them. And I decided I want to pay less taxes. And so I create a homeless services bed. Your 500 beds on the lot next to my high-rise, and now my property tax gets cut in half. Um, wouldn't that also happen in this,

13. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:31:31speaker not certain

    Um, I, I think, oh, um, I can check that. These are the ones defined by like the state has to put the homeless shelter.

14. Sen. Brady Brammer1:31:39

    Yeah. What I'm saying is, rather than say something that has 500 y, but just say the name of what the homeless shelter you're talking about, that way it doesn't spread or it can't be manipulated.

15. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:31:50speaker not certain

    They have to come back to the legislature to get that approval.

16. Sen. Brady Brammer1:31:52

    Okay. But that's just a suggestion on the bill. Like, you know, if this is about a specific facility, it is, let's make it about the facility and not a criteria that could be met in a manipulative way in in other situations. I hope that

17. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:32:06

    Means sense, you know? Yeah, no, that makes sense. And Mr. Chair, I will say, I, I don't mind making those changes. This is to address a 1300 bed facility in my district. Yeah. So I, I don't mind if it narrows it down to have people feel more comfortable it. And so that's what I'm trying to target at this point. Yeah.

18. Sen. Brady Brammer1:32:21

    Thanks. I appreciate that. Thank you.

19. Committee chair1:32:25

    Okay. Thank you. Okay. To the amendment. Um, all in favor, I'll place the amendment all in favor of adopting the amendment for Senate for amendment one, for Senate Bill 2 79. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes unanimously and is amended. Okay. With that, uh, to the bill, bring it back to the committee for further questions on the bill. Seeing none, I'm gonna ask, uh, your choice of funding.

20. Committee chair1:32:57

    So you're doing this as a one-time tax credit or is this an ongoing tax credit?

21. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:33:03

    It's an ongoing tax credit.

22. Committee chair1:33:06

    Okay. So my question for you is why we chose the income tax fund for this tax credit versus the alternative. And maybe while you're doing that address, this isn't necessarily income tax related, so, uh, or sorry, it isn't really education related or social services related. So I'm trying to figure out how we get past that earmark on, uh, for, you know, for that, for that issue, if that makes sense.

23. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:33:39

    Yeah. Yes, it does make sense, Mr. Chair. I, so one, let me say why I think, you know, um, the state is making this determinations on the shelters, um, and I think the state should be responsible for mitigating impact. So that's to answer why, um, the state, um, and, you know, and ongoing, because you are having to deal with the impact forever, as long as that facility is in place. Um, and in terms of the, the income tax, I was, um, you know, determined through the drafting, I didn't get any red flags. I can see where you're coming from, Mr. Chair and I, I'm happy to discuss if it has to come from a different place. I just don't wanna, I wanna own it as a state because we are the ones decided, well, not even us, but an advisory board that we put together by, with no elected officials is making the determination, and at least in this case, where this place should, well, this 1300 bed facility should be.

24. Committee chair1:34:40speaker not certain

    I agree and I appreciate that. And I do agree, like from a standpoint of it is a statewide burden. There is not any one person, you know, the chances that it's gonna be Salt Lake City residents, you know, might be low actually of people that are living in the, in the facility. So, you know, from that standpoint, I do agree, you know, from a statewide, uh, impact, um, my, uh, you know, I guess the balance is, I I have been, um, gently and lovingly encouraged by my minor minority party colleagues to avoid issuing credits outta the income tax fund just because of, you know, issues, uh, and taking money away from education, et cetera. So I, I wanted to just ask, you know, our thought for, you know, your thought in balancing those two issues, I mean, it's, they're both hard issues, right? Uh, so I just wanna get your thought on why this is appropriate to take, you know, from the income tax center. And I would say this is social services related, if you think about homelessness and it impacts children. Mm-hmm. Um, so, you know, your population of those 1300 bed facility could potentially be children addressing social services needs.

25. Committee chair1:35:52

    Okay. Yeah. That's fair. Um, okay. That concludes my questions. Uh, another light came up.

26. Committee chair1:35:59

    So Senator Harper has a question for you. So go ahead, Senator Harper.

27. Sen. Wayne A. Harper1:36:02

    Thank you. You had similar, uh, vein of questioning that I have. I guess, I mean, if you take a look at it, the real impact on the neighbors deals with their property. Therefore, I think this should be property. Okay. You can use the education fund as amended for the children and, and you know, disabled, things like that. But if you look at holistically, it's probably more appropriate as a general fund. 'cause you're dealing with social services, you're dealing with property, you're dealing with transportation, you're dealing with, uh, enforcement issues, uh, counseling, things like that. So I think, I don't know which the best fund to, to tap on this, but I think that's an item that needs to be mm-hmm. Investigated a little more.

28. Committee chair1:36:51

    Absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much.

29. Committee chair1:36:54

    One more question from Senator Brammer. See,

30. Sen. Brady Brammer1:36:57

    This is kind of just to understand the nuts and bolts of how it would work. Um, I would guess that almost every property around the, not everyone, but a good chunk of them are owned by LLCs. You know, it's a, it's a corporate property and usually those are pass through entities. Okay. So let's say that you have, uh, an LLC Landco owns a property next to the homeless shelter. Um, and would that come from the owner of Land CO's income tax, or would it have to declare tax for itself in order to take advantage of declare income for itself in order to take advantage of this?

31. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:37:43

    Um, I don't wanna, I will have to review that and get back to you, Senator. I don't, I don't know that process. Um, my, I'm guessing, so the way I envision this is it will be after you file your taxes and everything happens. So, uh, but you may need more, more information than what I'm just providing. I, I, I would love to get back to you on that. Yeah,

32. Sen. Brady Brammer1:38:05

    I'm, and the reason why I say that is I'm trying to understand, like trying to think if, if I were consulting with someone on how to structure something to take advantage of this tax credit, um, now I wouldn't do the tax side of it, but I would be doing the entity side of it. You know, it, most of those entities are passed their entities, so they have no income per se. Correct. Everything goes to either another corporate entity or to an to a person, and then it's part of their tax bill. So, um, I just worry that it's not hitting who you want if you do it out of the income tax. Whereas the property tax probably does hit who you want and you may want to consider if you were to do this, you may want to do it out of, out of the property tax and then have a reimbursement back, you know, to the entities or something like that. Uh, you know, it, it's just, I am a little worried about how it's how it works in, in reality actual, Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Because just because the way that everything is set up, the vast majority, I mean, if you're talking about industrial around this, it is impacting, it is burdening those lands, but I don't think the income tax gets it. I think it has to be the property tax unless there's something funky with how you'd have to change normal behavior and how you set up an entity and tax an entity in order to take advantage of it. I hope that makes sense.

33. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:39:32

    Yes. And, and I will, Mr. Chair, if that's okay, I I appreciate that feedback. I, I think you're making a great point. I would love to explore more how that looks like in actual life. Like real life. 'cause you're correct. If it's, um, 'cause commercial purposes, you know, I think for a homeowner like that, I think this makes more sense in that sense. But, um, the other ones will be different. So I, yeah, I mean, I'll love to get to look more into that and get back to, I mean to all of you, I, I think it's, you know, it's a good part of the conversation. Well,

34. Sen. Brady Brammer1:40:05

    And the only other concern that I have is, you know, you, you've almost set up a regressive tax tax credit system on this. And the reason why I say that is you only get, it's a non-refundable, which means you'd have to have a higher income in order to get the, as much value. So the higher income you have, the more tax credit you get, even though the burden on the property is the same. And if you have a low income and very low tax burden, you get almost nothing. And so, like I worry about the functionality of that piece on it.

35. Committee chair1:40:36

    Okay. Taking notes too. You've been giving us a lot of notes to everyone presenting here today. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna add one more thing to Yes. Add to your note.

36. Sen. Brady Brammer1:40:52

    Uh, I just, I just pulled up the physical location and was just trying to do some math on what a mile is. Mm-hmm. And then I remembered that I two 15 runs right through there. Mm-hmm. You know, and so I'm, I'm trying to figure out the rationale. If you, you know, if you take a, a, you know, a circle and, you know, draw radius that is mile and then, you know, draw it out as I look at this once I 15 is in between that and the other, you know, I, I'm just trying to figure out what we think the impact will be to people on the east side of two 15 versus people to the west. You know what I mean? Yep.

37. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:41:34

    Um, so if, okay, so what's interesting about the location itself is the actual exit. There's only, so the roads and transportation is one of the biggest concerns actually for this specific site. 'cause there is not infrastructure, roads and any transportation to get there. And so the people that live east, um, of i of the two 15, which is kinda like what you're saying on, on that circle of one mile radius will have a, will be impacted tremendously in terms of that traffic, uh, component. And then on the, the west, which is, there's a lot of farmers actually, and they're the ones that really spoke, um, our constituency. I mean, it's devastating for their, for their, where for their business and where, what they're trying to do in their farming community there, um, that it's also, um, negatively impacting them. So I think the one mile radius was trying to acco, you know, to account for that impact on transportation, including east of two 15. But on the, on the west, which is literally next door neighbor to where the facility will be, is mostly farming, um, communities and, and families that own farm little farming areas and that are important. This is important to them. And for many of them, it's been generations that have been living in those properties and farming in that property.

38. Sen. Brady Brammer1:43:01

    Yeah, I can see, I can see that disruption. So, okay. Uh, thank you.

39. Committee chair1:43:07

    Uh, we'll, we'll close committee questions and comments and now go to the public for public comment. Any public comment.

40. Unknown speaker1:43:17speaker not certain

    Don't you love when you have no champions, even though you're trying to do something nice for the neighborhood? I, I mean, I hate that when that happens. It's like, I've got this great idea and, you know, anyway, so I sympathize, but I'm, I'm certain that all of those people that I can see on the Google map are very appreciative of your efforts, you know?

41. Committee chair1:43:35

    Um, okay. Uh, with that we'll close, is there anybody online maybe public comment? No. Okay. So with that, we'll close public comment and we'll bring it back to the committee. Uh, Senator Harper, thank you.

42. Sen. Wayne A. Harper1:43:47

    Move that we favorably recommend Senate Bill 2 89, excuse me, not 2 89. 2 79 As amended. As amended.

43. Committee chair1:43:56

    Okay. Would you like to speak to that?

44. Unknown speaker1:43:57speaker not certain

    Um, I think the, I think the good senator has a great heart. There's some tweaks need to be made, but I think we'd like to see it move forward.

45. Committee chair1:44:05

    Okay. That motion's Snorter. Uh, any questions or discussion from the committee? Anybody online? Okay. Wasn't sure if we lost our, oh, we do have Senator Comore still online? Yeah. Okay. Okay, good. Alright. Uh, we'll bring it back.

46. Committee chair1:44:21

    Uh, Senator Escamilla for summation, I'm gonna Work on some of this pieces been

47. Sen. Luz Escamilla1:44:24

    very educational, thank you. Okay. For the consideration for my district. Thank You. Yep. Okay.

48. Committee chair1:44:29

    Uh, the motion before us is to pass Senate Bill 2 79 with a, uh, uh, let's see what they're called. State Homeless Campus Neighbor Tax. With a favor. Recommendation. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Is that a aye on both online? Just gimme a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Okay. Uh, uh, any opposed say nay? No, Nay. Nay. Okay. I'm gonna call, I'm gonna, uh, I'm gonna ask Ms. Millard to do a roll call. Vote for ease of my life.

49. Committee chair1:45:04

    All right. Senator Wilson? No. Okay. Senator Harper. Aye. Senator Fillmore? I think it's Comore. Oh, Comore. Sorry. No, thank you. Senator Escamilla. Aye. Senator Brammer and Chair McKay?

50. Sen. Brady Brammer1:45:26

    Yeah. Okay. I am going to vote. Aye, put you in a tie, but at least gives you an opportunity to work with everybody else.

51. Committee chair1:45:35

    Figure it out. I'm happy to bring it back to another committee if, if, uh, you wanna work on it. Um, uh, but right now because it is tied, I will rule that the motion fails as tied and we'll move on to the next item of the agenda. Thank you. Yep. Thank you very much. I know, I know. Big softy.

52. Committee chair1:45:59

    Okay, next up, uh, we will work on, uh,