AI-generated summary, not yet reviewed by Better Utah staff. Please consult the bill text.

Utah law currently lets voters in a county create a new county by gathering petition signatures, and this bill would preserve that option while adding a second pathway: the governing body of a city or town in a county with more than one million residents (currently only Salt Lake County) could pass a resolution to start the process, either alone if it represents at least one-third of the county's population or together with other cities that collectively meet that threshold. Before any vote could occur, the county would have to commission a feasibility study — paid for by the petitioning voter or municipality — examining costs, population changes, and financial effects on both the proposed new county and the remaining county, with municipalities able to request changes or file objections; if the study found the split infeasible, the petitioner could still choose to proceed to a vote anyway, which would now take place at the next general election rather than a special election. The bill would prevent new county boundaries from splitting an existing municipality, generally keep unincorporated areas grouped with their most populous neighboring city, and allow large rural landowners (1,500 or more contiguous acres, or land in agricultural, mining, or industrial protection areas) to opt out of the new county unless they consent in writing. Finally, the bill specifies that a newly created county and the county it split from would share responsibility for the original county's debts until they formally divide them, that the original county would be required to continue collecting property taxes on land in the new county to pay off existing bonds, that the new county's transportation sales tax rate would have to match the original county's rate, and that the new county's official creation date would shift to the second January following voter approval rather than the first.