It’s almost voting time! You should receive your ballots this week. If you don’t, you can check your registration at vote.utah.gov. It is not too late to register! If you are a citizen who has lived in Provo for at least 30 days, you can register to vote here.
- If you are an active registered voter, your ballot will be mailed to you between October 14 and October 28, 2025. If you don’t receive your ballot, contact the Utah County Clerk at 801-851-8128 or elections@utahcounty.gov.
- Follow the instructions provided with the ballot.
- Make sure your ballot is counted by either:
- Returning your ballot through the mail. Ballots must be received by the clerk’s office on or before 8 p.m. on election day. Ballots received after November 4, 2025 will not be counted. Mail your ballot early to meet this deadline.
- Dropping your ballot off at your county clerk’s office, a polling location, or a drop box by 8:00 pm on Election Day. Drop boxes for Provo are at the Library and the County Administration Building.
- You can always vote in person at early polling locations or on election day at the Utah County Health and Justice Building. All info can be found at vote.utah.gov.
An Explanation of Sales Tax Revenue
When you make a purchase in Utah, businesses collect sales tax at the point of sale–the place where you check out at the register. All sales tax collected is sent to the Utah State Tax Commission, which handles the distribution. 4.85% of all sales tax goes to the state, and the rest goes back to the municipality where the sale occurred. These local taxes are earmarked for specific purposes, like RAP taxes, which fund recreation, arts, and parks and must be approved by voters.
Here’s an important detail for cities: within the state’s 4.85% portion, there’s a 1% general local option sales tax. Half of this is allocated back to cities based on population, and the other half is returned to where the sale happened—point of sale. This is why cities work hard to attract big retailers—they want those sales tax dollars. But even communities without a strong retail base still receive their share based on population. For a more in depth explanation of sales tax, you can watch this video I made about a year ago.
Provo Sales Tax Revenue
Sales tax is crucial to city budgets, making up a significant portion of their revenue. In Provo, sales tax makes up 30% of our revenue (33% just a year ago), by far the largest single contributor. This 1% general local sales tax is especially important because it is not earmarked for any particular purpose.
On page 32 of the most recent City budget, presented by Mayor Kaufusi and adopted by the City Council in June, you can find this chart, which shows budgeted sales tax revenue (blue bars) versus actual collections (green bars). Except for 2022 and 2025, Provo has collected 3–7% less than projected each year. (2025 is incorrect in this published budget. The actual amount received was about $1 million higher than shown.)
If we look only at raw dollars, revenue appears mostly flat, with the low being projected for 2026. If the projection is correct, it represents a decrease in sales tax revenue of about 4% since 2023. This is a problem, and we need to gather as much relevant information as possible to come up with a plan to solve it (the 2nd step in problem solving). For example, it is important to know how much of each year’s sales tax revenue is from population disbursement and how much is from point of sale; however, the city does not have that information from what I have been told.
When we adjust for inflation, the picture is even clearer. $1 million in 2025 can’t buy as much as $1 million could a few years ago. For example, if you are getting paid the same salary now as you were several years ago, the amount might be the same, but your buying power with that paycheck has greatly diminished. So to understand what’s really happening with the city’s buying power, we must adjust dollars for inflation.
This graph shows Provo’s tax revenues since 2015 converted to 2025 dollars, using the correct 2025 revenue. By using one year as the baseline, we take out the effect of inflation and see the true value of our revenues over time. (CPI from Utah Bureau of Labor and Statistics) The number for 2026 is the budgeted projection, and we won’t know the actual value until after the fiscal year ends next June 30th.
Why does this matter? Because when buying power decreases, Provo must either cut services, shift more burden onto property taxes and fees, or take from our rainy day funds to keep a balanced budget.
What Can I Do As Mayor?
Local businesses are the economic driver of our city. However, according to an analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Provo/Orem/Lehi metro area has seen a drop of 12.5% in retail establishments since 2020. Utah as a whole has experienced 2% growth in this same time.
As I have listened to dozens of business owners and potential business owners talk about their experiences in working with the City in trying to set up their business, it has been eye-opening. There is a lot of red tape and confusing instructions (or lack thereof), and many have been discouraged enough to go somewhere else or give up. We have a reputation of being unfriendly to business, and we need to turn that around. Prove needs to make it easy for business, including small, neighborhood friendly, local entrepreneurs, to open shop. Here is a list of things that I would do as mayor:
1. Vitalize and better support the businesses that are already here. They create jobs, generate revenue, and give our city its unique character. Provo’s Downtown has the potential to be one of the best in Utah, and there is much more Provo City can do to make it a destination.
Let’s bring back the Rooftop Concert Series and do more things like the First Friday Art Stroll or the Antique Car Show that bring people downtown. The goal is to increase access to businesses and encourage more visitors.
We need a vision and plan for Downtown, and this has become increasingly urgent after the wakeup call from the geyser in July. As mayor, I would collaborate with business owners, city plannrs, and residents to create this vision for downtown. Center Street has to be torn up to replace the pipes, and before we do that, we need to know how we want downtown Provo to be. What would be the best configuration? A couple of the questions we could ask are,
- Do we want a center island?
- Would we rather have wider sidewalks, cafe seating, and parklets?
- Do we want to change traffic flow?
- How do we make it safer for pedestrians and bikers
- What are we going to do about parking?”
2. Support the smart redevelopment of Provo Towne Center Mall and East Bay.
3. Make it easier to open and grow a business in Provo by removing the red tape that holds entrepreneurs and business owners back. An entrpreneur I spoke to a few days ago is opening a coffee shop soon, and I asked her how it was going. She told me she had no idea because there was no checklist or instructions to follow for what the city needed. I will make sure the process to open a business is clear and easily accessible.
4. In areas that are currently underserved, like West and Southeast Provo, change the zoning to allow for neighborhood friendly retail, restaurants, and services.
Fact Checking
I was hoping that this race would be about issues. Unfortunately, the mayor and her campaign team have decided to misrepresent my record in the legislature in an effort to secure another four years for Michelle. This started months ago as word of mouth rumors and anonymous flyers and emails, but it has recently spread to flyers that are paid for by Michelle Kaufusi’s campaign and being handed out door to door. Either she and her campaign are ignorant of how to read a bill and lack understanding of how legislation is written and moves through the process, or they are actively lying.
Past records are important to help voters to see how each candidate approaches issues and challenges. I have an extensive voting record (well over 5,000 votes) and have countless speeches, emails, posts, and videos documenting my work in the legislature and with my constituents. This is all fair game. My voting record is public, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Transparency is crucial to a healthy democratic republic. In fact, I believe Provo could benefit from increased transparency, starting with the Mayor’s office. I served in the legislature with integrity and common sense, and that’s exactly what I’m planning to do as mayor. I am committed to strengthening the things Provo does well while improving our weak spots.Whenever you start hearing anonymous rumors that don’t seem to fit in with your experience with a candidate, it might be worth asking yourself who benefits from spreading the information, and what stake they have in the conversation. I am committed to always being upfront and transparent about my communication. If you ever have any questions about where I stand on an issue or on my voting record, please ask me. My phone number is 801-669-6962 and my email address is marshforprovo@gmail.com.
Here are just a few of the votes and bills that Mayor Kaufusi and her campaign are misrepresenting.
MISINFORMATION
Marsha voted against strengthening protections for girl’s sports
TRUTH
HB463 in 2023: This bill was not about protecting girl’s sports: on the House Floor, the sponsor herself said it was for age verification. This bill would require parents to upload a child’s birth certificate to the district before their child could participate in a school sport. I felt it added another layer of bureaucracy to participating in sports. Many of my colleagues agreed with me, and the bill never made it to the Senate Floor. I believe in limited government and cutting red tape, and this bill did not support either of these priorities.
MISINFORMATION
Marsha sponsored legislation to block schools from seeing expunged records of job applicants convicted of serious, violent, or sexual crimes.
TRUTH
HB585 2024: This bill focused on streamlining hiring processes for the Utah State Board of Education. They helped draft the bill, and it does not block schools from seeing records of job applicants convicted of serious, violent, or sexual crimes. It ended up not being needed and I dropped it. NOTE: Utah does NOT expunge serious, violent, and sexual crimes.
MISINFORMATION
Marsha didn’t vote on a tax cut that Utah families were counting on.
TRUTH
HB54 in 2023: I voted yes on the tax cut and helped pass this bill in the House. I was working on passing other legislation during the concurrence vote, which just standardized language between the Senate and House versions of the bill. NOTE: While serving in the legislature, I routinely had one of the highest attendance and voting records in the House. I took my responsibilities very seriously.
If you have any questions about me, my voting record, my values, or my vision for Provo, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Events
Monday, October 13
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Forum Hosted by Representative Tyler Clancy
Provo City HallTuesday, October 14
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Cottage Meeting Hosted by Richard Jensen
535 E 2200 N, Provo
Wednesday, October 16
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Cottage Meeting Hosted by Camille Smith
1682 W 900 N Provo
Wednesday, October 16
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Cottage Meeting hosted by Jonah Johnson
Monday, October 20
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Cottage Meeting Hosted by Dan Thomas
1414 S 1710 E
Wednesday, October 22
Cottage Meeting Hosted by Laurel White
7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
549 E 2825 N
Thursday, October 23
Cottage Meeting hosted by the Sudweeks
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
1023 E Waterford Dr.
Tuesday, November 4
Election Day!
Your ballots must be RECEIVED before 8 pm! There were over 200 ballots in the primary that could not be counted because they were received too late, so make sure to plan for this new change!