Senators get a jump on budget

Utah's Republican state senators emerged from a four-hour, closed-door caucus Saturday with a budget priority list that includes $150 million in tax cuts — and, surprisingly, an agreement to at least consider taking more of the sales tax off food.

The decisions made in the rare weekend meeting mean leaders of the Senate and House — both of which have ironclad GOP majorities — can begin budget negotiations in earnest as the 45-day legislative session enters its second week.

And there's plenty of negotiating to be done over spending a record $1.6 billion in one-time surpluses and growth in revenues. House Republicans decided they wanted to cut taxes $300 million. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has called for a $100 million reduction.

Everyone wants to avoid what happened last year, when a compromise tax-cut package crafted after weeks of often hostile discussions unraveled on the floor of the House in the final hours of the session.

"We're a lot closer at the end of the first week than we were last session," Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said Saturday after outlining the results of the caucus he described as called "to focus on the future of Utah."

Both House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, and the governor's office were encouraged by the outcome of the Senate caucus. Curtis said there's room for compromise. "There always is," he said, calling lawmakers "leap years ahead of where we were last year."

The governor's spokesman, Mike Mower, said everyone is now "focused on ensuring that we have significant funding for addressing unmet needs in education and transportation ... and that it's likely there will be some form of tax relief for Utah taxpayers."

The GOP senators made it clear they're willing to compromise with their House counterparts by leaving on the table what would be a further reduction in the sales tax on food — despite their distaste for a House effort to wipe out the hated tax entirely.

Curtis has made taking the sales tax off food a priority and was able to get lawmakers to agree last year to cut the state's share in half. Now, the House speaker wants to go further by eliminating the so-called "boutique" taxes from food purchases.

The proposal, which would create a single statewide rate for food purchases, was endorsed by the governor in his State of the State speech last week. It would get rid of about $20 million in locally collected taxes, including those assessed for transit and for zoos, arts and parks.