Walker to unveil budget reflecting revenue growth

Work is already under way on Huntsman's version of the budget, Herbert told reporters Thursday, after a luncheon speech about the new administration's priorities made to the Utah Foundation, a nonprofit organization that studies tax policies

Herbert said the new administration will look at a variety of areas, such as whether the state's Centennial Highway Fund could be paid off before its 2017 due date to free up more money for roads.

"I expect in the compressed time frame that we've got, we'll be spending a lot of time with the Legislature and their leadership and seeing if we can't at least come together," Herbert said. "There will be a few areas where we'll say we have different priorities."

Although Walker will not formally brief Huntsman on the budget before it is released at 2 p.m. today, the governor-elect has had staffers sitting in on the budget process. And Huntsman has hired Walker's budget director, Richard Ellis, to do the same job for him.

LaVarr Webb, who was Leavitt's deputy for policy when the new Leavitt administration took office in January 1993, said, "We changed (outgoing Gov.) Norm Bangerter's budget quite a bit; we had our own emphases."

Leavitt did not print a whole new budget book for the 1993 Legislature to consider but gave lawmakers an extensive addendum, outlining where he wanted to spend more money.

As will be the case in the 2005 Legislature, during each session in late February the governor's and Legislature's budget experts get together and come up with new revenue estimates — both for the current budget year and for the next budget year.

Historically, more money is "found" in those estimates, so lawmakers and governor alike have more cash to push to favorite programs. The GOP House and Senate caucuses and the governor then haggle over where the money goes.

The most recent budget year ended with a surplus of almost $94 million, and state tax collections have continued to grow throughout the current budget year that will end June 30, 2005. For the first quarter, revenue was up almost $57 million.

That's a rate of growth of 9.5 percent, much higher than the 1.8 percent projected. Earlier this year, the chief economist for the state Tax Commission, Doug Macdonald, predicted the state could end up with as much as $150 million more than budgeted by next June.

Having more cash doesn't make it any easier to come up with a new budget, Valentine said. "It's especially tough," the recently elected Senate leader said. "Expectations are high that everyone will get everything they want."

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