Huntsman may submit budget early

Legislative leaders and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. hope to present a final budget bill as early as Monday, almost five days before the deadline to pass a budget.

Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, and House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, have been meeting behind closed doors with Huntsman in an attempt to craft the final budget proposal, which will spend the remaining $427 million. Legislation approving the bulk of the almost $9 billion state budget, which legislators approved last week, is awaiting the governor's signature. Those bills, HB1 and HB3, approved the base budgets, plus $70 million in new transportation funding, salary and benefit increases for state employees, and an increase in the per-pupil spending for public education.

Curtis said Friday that "we've about gotten our arms" around the budget in meetings with Huntsman and his top aides.

"Basically, there is so much (new) money that we (the GOP caucuses and the Republican governor) are getting about what we want," he said. "There are not a whole lot of differences."

During his monthly news conference on KUED, Huntsman said that "the mechanics of government are working" in the negotiations. While there is still some disagreement, he expected that those would be resolved relatively early.

"It's still, in a sense, a give-and-take as these things usually are at this point in the negotiations. But I think next week, we'll probably settle on final numbers," Huntsman said.

The lingering issues, as they have been all session, include transportation funding, state employee salary adjustments for market value, and education funding. Other issues include Medicaid benefits and open space preservation.

"I know no other way, other than being open, communicative, transparent (and) putting your cards on the table," said the governor, a former diplomat who served as the U.S. ambassador to Singapore. "I'm not one who's going to play a lot of negotiating games."

He said that he plans to sign HB1 and HB3 as long as negotiations go well, although he was waiting as long as possible.

"I don't have any concerns about the base budget bills so long as we are able to achieve some of the priorities," Huntsman said. "I just want to feel comfortable before I sign HB1 that we are on target with some of these numbers that I consider to be priorities."

Having negotiations on the budget among the three leaders of state government is a change from the past, when it generally involved the governor's budget directors and the co-chairs of the Executive Appropriations Committee, also known as the budget managers. However, this year Huntsman decided to handle the negotiations himself, which brought the two leaders into the room, said House Budget Manager Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley.