Welcome to The Senate Site

By Sheldon Killpack
Senate Majority Leader-elect

Saturday the Senate Republican Caucus spent six hours talking about priorities for the upcoming Legislative Session. It should come as no surprise that the primary area of focus was the state budget. Tax revenues are coming in lower than anticipated and it is critical we re-size expenditures to match income.

We are painfully aware of the affect cuts in State agencies will have. We also recognize the example of States around us who refuse to live within their means and the circumstances they now find themselves in.

Here are the basic building block principles to which the Senate Majority agreed:

1. The budget must be structurally balanced. That means we use ongoing income for ongoing expenses and one-time money for one-time expenses. Much like you have to run your household budget, you can only rely on money in your regular income to pay for your ongoing expenses. It is never wise to plan on one-time bonuses to make future mortgage payments.

2. We will adopt an 85 percent base budget at the beginning of the Session. Why? There's a chance the economic slide hasn't hit bottom yet, and we won't have updated numbers until February. Chances are we won't have to cut a full 15 percent, but it makes sense to plan responsibly now and add money back if the numbers hit anticipated targets

3. Transportation funding should take a proportionate hit, but not bear the full weight of a budget scale back. Road infrastructure is key to our economy. It seems as if many have adopted a philosophy of utilizing transportation funding as an additional rainy day fund. This may have sufficed in a time when the Federal Government was able to keep its transportation funding commitments – how times have changed. Many of our neighboring states who relied heavily on the Federal Government by pledging bonds to future Federal funds now find themselves in a unpleasant and uncertain position.

4. Economic Development must be a primary focus. We discussed economic development at length and asked our committee chairs to analyze their areas and be cognizant of how their actions will effect Utah’s economy. We are also interested in finding opportunities to work with GOED in utilizing one-time funds to assist in capital for companies who could create new jobs in the immediate future thus generating new ongoing state tax revenue. If you know of significant opportunities we would love to hear from you.

5. Local decisions in cuts to Public Education. Unfortunately, Public Education will feel the effects of budget cuts this year. It is not our desire to entirely dictate where these cuts will be made. We wish to determine the right percentage cut and provide a menu of options for local school district boards to determine what works best for their circumstances.

The House Majority is holding a similar session-prep caucus meeting on Monday. We look forward to working with our colleagues in the House, and our colleagues across the aisle, over the next several months. This next Session is sure to be challenging as we bring the State budget into balance.

I’m confident there will be critics of certain aspects of the budget cuts that must be made. However, this outside pressure is no reason to abandon our responsibility to make the decisions that assure we don’t simply leave the financial clean-up work to our children and our grandchildren. Utah’s designation of best managed state didn’t happen by accident and we plan on maintaining the strong fiscal supervision that delivered that designation in the first place.

3 Comments:

 Free Market Advocate said...

Step one is to get rid of the notion that the state can drive economic development through the office of GOED. Economic policy should be based on broadbased tax cuts (income, sales, and property taxes) as well as elimination of regulatory overhead.

Utah spends too much taxing some to subsidize others. The Gov focus too much on recruiting outside companies at the expense of home-grown businesses. Rather than the corrupt practice of giving breaks and handouts to the politically connected government should be neutral, allowing the free market to do what it does best.

12/14/2008 10:13 PM  

 Too Many Politicians, Too Little Freedom said...

The best thing for our economy would be to:
1. Eliminate business taxes, cut personal taxes, significant restrict government spending, and eliminate all federal regulations.
2. Banish the President, Congress, and our busybody governor (preferable to a nice 3rd world country with now media access)
3. Limit the Legislature to a 1-week session every 5 years (that still might be too often)
4. Sit back and watch our economy thrive as entrepreneurs are unleashed to meet market demand!

12/14/2008 10:23 PM  

 Anonymous said...

Can we officially change the name of the Utah Senate. It should be the "Utah we-think-roads-are-more-important-than-people Senate."

Seriously, how many time have we seen our the senate recommend cutting human service areas and "saving" roads.

Roads are key to our ecomony? Not if people have no money to spend because they have been laid off!

12/15/2008 4:07 PM  

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