Lots of money, little space.

With record tax revenues and temporary cramped offices and chambers, the 56th Utah Legislature convenes Monday on Capitol Hill.

While every Legislature is different, this one is really different. New faces and new buildings. New ideas, even new parking spaces.

As the 104 part-time legislators raise their hands to be sworn into office, apparently one major decision has already been made: No general tax cuts this year, say legislative leaders and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

And that's fine with most Utahns.

A new Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows that 59 percent of Utahns want the record-setting new tax growth and one-time surpluses to be spent on state needs, not returned in tax cuts.

The Dan Jones & Associates survey of 623 adults statewide found that 34 percent want taxes cut, 4 percent offered other ideas about the funds and 3 percent didn't know.

Jones also asked about another big issue on the Hill: tax reform.

Huntsman says as the session proceeds he'll be asking legislators to look at phasing in removal of the corporate franchise tax and/or examine getting rid of the capital gains tax along with a few other changes to help "jump start" his economic development efforts. "But individual income tax and sales tax reform will have to wait" until the 2006 Legislature, he said.

Still, Utahns like the idea of a flat-rate personal income tax — modeled along the lines of proposals put forward by former Gov. Olene Walker, who left office two weeks ago. Sixty-two percent like a flat-rate income tax, Jones found, while 22 percent oppose it.

Taxes and money will be part of the discussions that take place over the next 45 days, along with considerations of more than 300 bills and the adoption of an $8 billion-plus budget for fiscal 2005-06.

The legislators will be sworn into office at 10 a.m., with newly installed House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, and Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, making remarks. And after official observances for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, lawmakers will get down to business in their new chambers, located in an office building behind the plastic-shrouded Capitol Building.

For the next four years lawmakers, lobbyists, state department bosses and the public will crowd into the temporary legislative quarters during the general sessions while the Capitol undergoes a $200 million earthquake proofing and renovation.

Across the plaza's oblong reflection pond (still under construction) sit the temporary digs of Huntsman, his staff, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and other elected officials.

Upcoming key decisions: