Utah must rein in spending growth, lawmaker says

During the past three years, Utah state government spending has grown by nearly 15 percent annually, a new study finds — an unprecedented growth rate that conservative legislators say can't continue.

"We can't sustain" such double-digit expansions, Rep. Greg Hughes said of a new study examining government growth by the Utah Taxpayers Association, a government watchdog group funded by local businesses. The Draper Republican is chairman of the Conservative Caucus in the House, a group of GOP legislators who are trying to give larger tax cuts this year as a way to slow state government growth.

Mike Jerman, UTA vice president, said his group compared the average growth of the state's two main taxpayer-supported funds, the Uniform School Fund and the general fund over 15 years. The UTA study followed spending during the 11-year tenure of former Gov. Mike Leavitt (1993-2003), the one-year tenure of Gov. Olene Walker 2003-'04), and the first three year's of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s current administration (2005-'07), including the proposed 2007-'08 budget the governor has now placed before the 2007 Legislature.

Because of three lean tax revenue years in the early 2000s, growth during the Leavitt years averaged only 5.6 percent in those two main funds. Walker's single year, as Utah rebounded from an economic recession in 2003-04, saw a healthy 11.2 percent growth.

But as Utah's tax revenues have steeply shot up over the past three years, budgets adopted by the GOP-controlled Legislature during Huntsman's administration have grown by an astounding average of 14.6 percent annually.

Over the 15-year period, the two major state funds have grown by an average 7.7 percent a year, while population and inflation has grown by a yearly average of only 5.2 percent. Thus state government is growing too fast, the study says.

"We have to take more money off the table" through tax cuts, said Hughes after reviewing the spending report, so spend-happy politicians have less cash to dish out.

Huntsman, however, is unconcerned.

"Because of enrollment growth and other critical needs" in Utah state government, some programs "have actually been underfunded," said Lisa Roskelley, Huntsman's spokeswoman. "The governor ran for election saying he wanted to grow the state's economy so he wouldn't have to raise taxes. And he's done just that. We've had this (growth in state spending), but we've also lowered taxes."

House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, and Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, also came into their top leadership posts over the same three years that Huntsman has been in office.