How Should Utah Spend $3 Billion?
– By Howard Sierer –
Despite a $192 million income tax cut, the State of Utah expects its current 2023 fiscal year ending in June to result in a $3.3 billion budget surplus. What should the state’s priorities be, and how should our legislature spend the money?
Four Southern Utah legislators, Sen. Don Ipson, and Reps. Walt Brooks, Colin Jack, and Joseph Elison offered their opinions and hopes at a recent Chamber of Commerce breakfast. I agree with some of their emphasis, but I’m less enthused with some other ideas.
Last year, the legislature adopted what it called a “cautious and conservative approach” to its $25 billion 2023 fiscal year budget, wanting to ensure the state remained in a strong financial position if the economy entered into a recession. The economy remained strong, resulting in this year’s surplus.
Our Southern Utah legislators floated a variety of possibilities for the $3 billion surplus, including set-asides for education, augmenting rainy day funds, and another income tax cut.
Gov. Spencer Cox has proposed a $28.4 billion budget for the coming 2024 fiscal year that includes $1 billion in tax cuts and $560 million for water management and conservation to begin implementing Utah’s Coordinated Action Plan for Water. Water is near the top of everyone’s list.
Those of us in Southern Utah can hope that our legislators will get some of those water funds designated for a planned regional secondary water system. With the Lake Powell pipeline’s chances disappearing, the Washington County Water Conservancy District hopes instead to make a dramatic reduction in the 60% of culinary water currently being used for outdoor watering. The secondary water system would include reused or recycled water.
Zach Renstrom, general manager of the Washington County Conservancy Water District, told St. George News in a recent interview, “We’ve been planning it for years. We’re spending a lot of our time focused on that.”
One of the arguments for the Lake Powell Pipeline was that our current residents needed to shoulder the pipeline’s extraordinary upfront costs to leave a legacy for future generations, just as previous generations built and paid for the water infrastructure we use today.
I support combining local funding with state funds to construct a regional secondary water system as a preferred alternative to a costly Lake Powell pipeline with its massive upfront expenditure. The pipeline’s payoff is doubtful since it would depend on highly-uncertain future Colorado River flows into Lake Powell. A regional secondary water system could be constructed on a much more incremental, pay-as-you-go basis and would use our existing water sources.
Our Southern Utah legislators spent time attacking Colorado River lower basin states for overusing their water allotments, while Utah has never used its full allocation. They claim that Nevada, California, and Arizona have used far more water than was promised them in the 1922 Colorado River Compact. Now that they are being forced to cut back as Colorado River flows are dropping, they want Utah to cut back as well.
Lower basin states justify their cutback demands by claiming that Utah is a water waster. Our lawmakers respond, as does the WCWCD that those states don’t calculate water use in the same way we do in Utah, and therefore comparisons that show excessive use in Utah are unfair.
I’ve always been skeptical of those WCWCD claims. I have a gut feeling that someone has something to hide about how water use is calculated. It seems to this engineer that differing water-use figures in different jurisdictions could be reformulated in a way that allowed “apples-to-apples” comparisons.
On another topic, our Southern Utah legislators echoed Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes’ complaints about moves by the Biden administration to force businesses to adopt “Environmental, Social and Governance” policies. I’ve called ESG a “threat to democracy,” and I support both our legislators and our attorney general in opposing its socialist-inspired imposition on our vibrant economy.
Utah’s 2023 legislature is off to a good start, passing two laws that implement measures I have long supported: state-funded vouchers supporting parents who choose charter, private or home schooling and restrictions on gender-change puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgery for minors.
Here’s hoping that the legislature’s 2023 session continues to live up to expectations, keeping Utah as possibly the best-governed state in the union.
