Utah Legislature: GOP agrees on budget plan but some unhappy with cuts

SALT LAKE CITY — GOP legislators reached agreement Tuesday on balancing next year's budget without a tax hike, but they already are saying there will be changes.

That's because the proposed spending plan for the budget year beginning July 1 includes budget cuts some members of the House and Senate Republican caucuses just can't stomach.

Like cutting 29 UHP troopers and releasing 213 prison inmates by Aug. 1, both of which are part of the overall 5 percent reduction found in the departments of public safety and corrections.

"There are hotspots that we still have to deal with. And we'll take a look at those," Rep. Greg Hughes, R-Draper, said.

Hughes made the motion in the open House caucus to adopt the $11.5 billion budget for 2010-2011 without any tax or fee hikes.

"This is why (Utah) is the best run state in the nation," said Hughes, head of the House's Conservative Caucus.

Senate Republicans, who hold their caucuses behind closed doors, stopped short of voting on the new budget.

"I think it's a place to start," said Senate Budget Chairman Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan. "But it shows the reality of how difficult this budget really is."

Hillyard said GOP senators were told to come to their next caucus on Thursday with any changes they want to make.

But, Hillyard warned, the only way to reduce the cuts is to find money somewhere else — either a tax increase, or cutting the budget someplace else, such as public education.

The budget proposal would "hold public education harmless," said House Budget Chairman Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley. But Bigelow then admitted that the plan doesn't fund 11,000 new students expected in the next school year.

That means the Weighted Pupil Unit — the basic funding formula given by the state to local school districts — would in effect go down about $90 per student. School districts would still have to educate new students, and so would take about a 3 percent cut in the WPU, he explained.

And Hillyard said the current plan also leaves out money needed by school districts to pay increased retirement and health insurance costs.

But the GOP plan would return $20 million to the 5 percent cuts ($83 million) made to colleges and universities, said Bigelow, helping them out a bit.