Summit County Seeks Five Volunteers to Guide Emergency Services Tax Grants

The visitors who crowd Park City's ski runs and Parleys Canyon trailheads have long strained Summit County's fire and rescue departments. Now, through a 0.5% emergency services sales tax those visitors help fund, roughly $840,000 is available for capital equipment, and five volunteer advisors will decide who gets it.

Summit County posted the call for advisory board applicants on March 26, with the grant-application period set to run April 1 through April 30. The board's recommendations will determine which capital projects and equipment purchases receive awards in the program's first cycle.

The five seats carry specific geographic requirements. Three are district-reserved: one applicant must be a registered voter in the Park City Fire Service District, one in the North Summit Fire Service District, and one in the South Summit Fire Protection District. The other two are at-large positions open to any registered voter residing in Summit County. The county manager will make the appointments with advice and consent of the county council.

The board's decisions could touch every corner of county emergency services. New ambulances, vehicle extrication tools, upgraded communications systems, and search-and-rescue equipment all fall within the program's eligible spending categories. For North Summit and South Summit volunteer districts, which cover rural stretches with fewer resources than Park City's full-time department, a single equipment grant could mean fielding modern apparatus through wildfire season rather than running aging gear.

Summit County voters approved the 0.5% emergency services sales tax in 2024 specifically to offset the costs that tourism places on fire, law enforcement, emergency medical services, and search-and-rescue operations. The county directed an estimated 5% of that revenue toward grants, producing the $840,000 pool now available for capital improvements. The county council's earlier adoption of Ordinance 1006 established the grant program's legal framework before the board recruitment opened.

Application details, required qualifications, and submission deadlines are posted on the county's website. The grant program itself accepts applications from April 1 through April 30, giving the newly seated board its first allocation decisions almost immediately after appointment.