Utah lawmakers tout their budget—and downplay their message bills—on the final day of the 2023 legislative session 

• Benjamin Wood
• The Utah State Capitol on Friday, March 3, 2023.

CAPITOL HILL—At the close of this year's 45-day legislative sprint on Friday, Utah's House and Senate leadership and its governor were unanimous in their praise of a "phenomenal," "record breaking" and "historic" session of state government.

"I’ve seen a lot of big sessions come and go but they are all eclipsed by what's been accomplished this year," said House Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville. "Everything we set out to accomplish from a big picture standpoint, we made it happen."

Wilson touted the new state budget, with highest-ever spending levels for public education and more than $700 million combined in tax cuts for Utahns. He said the state had made gains on water conservation, housing affordability and transportation, comparing the last three years of infrastructure spending to the surge in road and transit improvements in the lead up to the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.

"The impact that’s going to have on the state for the next 20 years is going to be remarkable," he said.

Lawmakers approved roughly $500 million in spending related to water and the declining Great Salt Lake. And Rep. Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said the bills around that spending were focused on longterm solutions to what is a longterm environmental problem.

"For so long, the lake has been neglected," Schultz said. "The tide has turned on that and the Great Salt Lake has become one of the state’s top priorities,."

In the Senate, leadership was similarly bullish about their work, suggesting the two legislative chambers had never had a better working relationship and expressing support for a package of bills that will cut the state sales tax on food and weaken a constitutional requirement that all income tax revenue be spent on public education, pending voter approval in 2024.

"We’re building a very strong base for education," said Sen. Ann Millner, R-Ogden. "And everything else that we put in place will continue to grow."

But observers of the proceedings were less effusive in their praise. Advocates and community groups objected to a new voucher program that will divert public funds to private schools, new bans on transgender health care, new restrictions on abortion services and a barrage of message bills targeting classroom discussion, investment preferences and initiatives around diversity and inclusion in both higher education and private employment.

Renée Pinkney, president of the Utah Education Association, said there's much to appreciate in the Legislature's work, from the repeal of school grading to the expansion of optional full-day kindergarten statewide. But it's hard to enjoy or appreciate those gains, she said, when faced with the totality of lawmakers' work.

"All of it is good, it’s just really overshadowed by the voucher bill," Pinkney said.

The UEA is currently neutral on the constitutional amendment to revise the so-called education earmark, while the Utah Board of Education ultimately took a position in favor after adjustments were made to enshrine the prioritization of school spending. Millner said negotiations will continue during the interim months and potentially the 2024 legislative session, and that she hopes to find language the UEA can support.

But Adams said that if the UEA objects, or if broader support from the education community erodes, then the Legislature can return to the approach of a full repeal of the income tax earmark, which would free up money in the Education Fund for spending in any area of government.

"If there’s not education support for it or we lose education support, I’m confident we can go back to just removing the earmark," Adams said.

Mayor Erin Mendenhall said the city maintained a good working relationship with lawmakers this year, which has seen City Hall and the State Capitol increasingly working together on issues like the inland port and homelessness after years at odds with each other. But she also expressed disappointment in the Legislature's approach to water management and particularly their rejection of a non-binding resolution that would have set a target level for the Great Salt Lake, which is in a state of existential decline.

"I’m knocking on wood, but I’m grateful that there were few terrible surprises—relative to previous years," Mendenhall said. "And there’s some very good affordable housing and homelessness progress in the legislation."

In his opening remarks at the start of the legislation session in January, Wilson made a point to praise municipal leaders who have led on the construction of new housing, while offering soft criticism to those who've resisted calls for added density and development. On Friday, he expressed confidence that the work done by lawmakers around the construction approval process would break down some of the barriers that have hampered growth and sent home prices sky high.

"More supply is going to lower prices," Wilson said.

Gov. Spencer Cox said he was "ecstatic" about how the session turned out. He said he's never been more optimistic about the Great Salt Lake and complimented lawmakers for their work on tax cuts, including the proposal to amend the income tax earmark and cut the state levy on groceries.

"There was really no other way," Cox said of how the two proposals were combined. "The way that the buckets of funding work in our state, we can’t get rid of $200 million in General Fund tax and not replace that with income tax. The only way to do that would be to have a little more flexibility with the earmark."

Cox said the bulk of his priorities were addressed, but noted that lawmakers failed to act on his proposal to fund a full year of free transit fares to study its impact on ridership, road congestion and air quality. Salt Lake City and the Utah Transit Authority partnered in 2022 to offer a full month of zero-fare transit, called Free Fare February, but the initiative was only partially repeated this year for 10 days around the NBA All-Star Game.

Cox said that while his administration was not involved in Free Fare February, the lack of action on fares by lawmakers might prompt his office to look into replicating the program in 2024 and potentially adding a summer month to compare its impact.

"If we can’t get a year, we’ll look at scaling something back and then partnering, maybe, with the municipalities," Cox said.

A full report on the 2023 legislative session will run in the March 9 issue of Salt Lake City Weekly and online at cityweekly.net.