Budget cuts done — at least for now

Utah legislators were well on their way Friday afternoon to wrapping up a special session that trimmed $272 million from current state spending and plugged an $82 million cash hole left over from last fiscal year.

GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Republican legislative leaders called the effort frustrating, but responsible. The session would help them address the declining tax revenues now, instead of January, when the problems could have been worse.

Huntsman also said that it was done cooperatively, even though he probably could have shored up the budget without the Legislature until the 2009 general session. "It was an all-hands-on-deck effort," the governor said of the special session he called to deal with the shortfall. "It could have been a unilateral exercise on the part of the executive branch where we could have gone out and made these changes without involving the Legislature."

House Democrats said more could have been done "to not harm people." But their leaders were happy with some changes made Friday to the budget cuts.

"We are better off" with the final budget decisions "than we were yesterday," said House Minority Leader Brad King, D-Price.

House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, said Utahns were well-served by lawmakers' actions. Cutting budgets is "always unpleasant," but the balanced budget is "fiscally responsible" in a time when the economy may get worse and necessitate additional cuts next year.

At the insistence of Huntsman and some lawmakers, more money Friday was put into state corrections, public safety and the courts — perhaps avoiding some layoffs and helping some critical programs there.

Still, Phil Riesen, D-Holladay, House minority caucus manager, said: "We should have bonded more for roads" and used ongoing tax revenues freed up in transportation for Human Service and other programs. Riesen was one of 15 House Democrats who voted against the main budget bill.

"Less worry about concrete, more care about people," said Riesen.

But legislative GOP leaders said lawmakers had done a good job overall, balancing various state needs with dwindling tax revenues.

Leaders said that not only did they come into a special session to fix the budget problems now, before they got worse, they also did not borrow any more money to balance budgets. Instead, they were being fiscally responsible and cutting budgets.

Curtis said that bonding for roads, as some wanted, was avoided "because it is basically borrowing" to pay for ongoing programs.

Major programs were not greatly harmed, a number of cash pots were pulled away from state departments that weren't being spent, and public education was not harmed at all.