Welcome to The Senate Site

By Lyle Hillyard
Senate Chair of Executive Appropriations

In our press conference today President Valentine and others discussed how trying to live up to our reputation of being the best fiscally managed state demands informed, timely, decisive action - even when it's not very fun. It's important that we address financial challenges before they become a crisis.

Here on the Senate Site we've been discussing that Utah's revenue forecast has changed since the legislative session. The increase in state revenue (sales tax, gas tax, income tax) we projected will still be an increase, but it will be less than we anticipated. Last winter we allocated about $322 M for increased state spending. We'll probably need to scale that back to the tune of between $100 and $200 Million.

Thanks to the governor's initiative, each state agency has already been asked to define how they would handle a 1%, 3% and 5% decrease from what they were slated to receive. We'll work closely with the state agencies. Hopefully the careful analysis they have already done will make it easier to find the right places to scale back funding.

Depending on the new numbers, Public Education may also need to scale back last year's increase, just like the other agencies. However, we can authorize them to use the non-lapsing balance in their account to, in effect, hold them harmless for 2009. Public Education will be able to spend the increased amount we specified during the session, at least for the next year. We hope and expect that the natural growth in the economy will catch up by 2010 and allow us to maintain the funding increases of the past several years.

Some people have asked why now?

We've been here before. We learned in 2001 that waiting makes it more difficult. It is easier to save money over 9 months than 3. If we were to wait until the legislative session the fiscal year would be nearly 3/4 of the way over - and any change at that point would have to be fairly dramatic to hit the new target.

This won't be much fun, but it is the job we were elected to do. Waiting would be irresponsible.

Let's not lose site of the fact that our economy (and the state of our budget) is the envy of our legislative colleagues nationwide. Timely, responsible action now will ensure we move forward with a budget that continues to be balanced.

Whatever we do now can be adjusted in the next legislative session – hopefully upward, but you never know.

3 Comments:

 Just and Holy said...

Thanks for acting quickly, and hopefully responsibly, to take care of this. I am grateful to live in a well-managed state. I hope that we can balance the budget and remember that just because tax revenue continues to climb doesn't mean we necessarily need to spend more money.

9/18/2008 10:58 AM  

 The Senate Site said...

Thanks J&H. Pretty sure we can balance the budget, and protect our recent education funding increases in the process. Maybe we'll name it after your blog site and call it the Just and Holy Balanced Budget Bill.

RC

9/18/2008 12:32 PM  

 Just and Holy said...

Hey thanks, RC, I'm all for that :)

9/19/2008 10:16 AM  

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