Governor cuts staff

Campaigning last year, then-gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. predicted he could save taxpayers some money on the governor's staff, hinting that should he be elected, the number of people working directly for him might dwindle.

Elected he was, and now it appears Huntsman has actually trimmed his office's spending, a comparison between former Gov. Olene Walker's staff payroll and Huntsman's shows.

As of early last December, Walker had 115 people working in her office (which includes the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget and the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice) with a total payroll of $5.423 million.

In late March, Huntsman had 111 people working for his office and a $5.281 million yearly payroll, information obtained by the Deseret Morning News through the Government Records Access and Management Act shows.

That's a difference of $141,900.

"Basically, we came in relying on the tried and true idea of doing more with less — run a tight ship," Huntsman said.

But that $142,000 savings can be accounted for solely in Huntsman closing down the state's Washington, D.C., office; laying off two employees whose combined salaries topped $142,000 a year.

And any savings in the Huntsman office may only be temporary, says Huntsman Chief of Staff Jason Chaffetz.

Chaffetz says that the $142,000 may be spent to hire a D.C. lobbyist to represent Utah in the nation's capital. "We have an RFP (request for proposal) out now for a lobbyist."

Huntsman added that any national lobbying work will be on a "project by project" basis, and it can't be determined now how much that may cost.

Huntsman has reorganized parts of his office, bringing the state head of economic development under his direct supervision. He has also pushed the state information officer's job — held by former Lt. Gov. Val Oveson at $112,028 a year — out of the governor's office and into the Department of Administrative Services, with plans to change the state's information technology services as well.

With the reorganizations, it's difficult to compare apples to apples, or Walker to Huntsman, in all cases. Still, considering just the very top gubernatorial aides, a newspaper analysis of the data shows that the median wage for Huntsman's elite advisers is $88,150 a year; while for Walker it was $90,542.

But Huntsman has two top aides, education advisers Tim Bridgewater and Hope Eccles, who are actually working salary-free — at least for now. So he's saving the $70,900 Walker paid her top education aide as well.