From Deseret News archives:
Demos hail open lines of communication
But they're unhappy about lack of funding for public schools
"But we have to look at the results," House Minority Leader Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, said Monday.
The Senate and House GOP caucuses put 120 million new dollars — both in new tax revenue and one-time surpluses — into transportation this session.
"We only put $127 million new dollars into public education," said Sen. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake, in a morning press conference.
That pays for growth, said Becker, but doesn't include much money for class-size reduction or increased salaries for new teachers. Still, at Huntsman's insistence, the Weighted Pupil Unit, the main state formula for public education, increased by 4.5 percent — higher than in recent years.
"It is curious," said Rep. Pat Jones, D-Cottonwood Heights, that as lawmakers rush to adjourn at midnight Wednesday, Huntsman and some GOP legislators are still pushing for a phase-in repeal of the state's 5 percent corporate income tax.
When the tax would be finally removed in 2012, repeal would cost the Uniform School Fund more than $200 million.
"All that money comes out of schools," she said.
Democrats lauded the death of a number of bills, including a flat-rate income tax and tuition tax credits for parents who send their children to private schools. But they complained about the killing of other bills, which they favored.
For the ninth straight year, a hate crimes bill did not pass.
"In fact, two (hate crimes) bills failed," said Rep. Dave Litvack, D-Salt Lake.
Litvack again ran his bill that would create enhanced penalties for crimes committed against a person or property for various biases, including religion and sexual orientation. A similar bill sponsored by Hale died in the Senate. Both died in committee hearings with some Republicans voting no, and were never debated on either the House or Senate floors.
And Becker said that once again lawmakers refused to consider a number of so-called "reform" bills, even a few that Huntsman wanted — to stop the top state executives from becoming lobbyists for one year and another that would have limited contributions to gubernatorial campaigns.
Democrats did like what was done for Utah's colleges and universities, however. It appears that extra money will be put into higher education to give extra pay raises to keep and attract good professors and researchers.
"We hope tuition will only go up 3.5 percent next fall," said Rep. Lou Shurtliff, D-Ogden.
That would be a much smaller tuition hike than in past years.
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com
