Budget bills pass House, Senate in initial step to approval

SALT LAKE CITY — Lawmakers hope to get the allocation of funds handled by the end of the week, having passed base budget bills from one body to the other Thursday.

The Utah House of Representatives passed HB1, HB4, HB5, HB6, HB7 and HB8 to the Senate, and the Senate passed SB1, SB5 and SB6 to the House, each for various subcommittee consideration.

Rep. Mel Brown, R-Coalville, serves as a chairman of the executive appropriations committee, where the final decisions are made concerning the state budget.

"We are talking about real money," Brown told the House on Thursday.

"Sometimes we lose track or perception in our personal lives. We talk about money in 10s, 20s, 100s, 1,000s and sometimes even 10,000s and 100,000s, but we're talking about millions and billions here, and so sometimes we have a tendency to lose our perspective," he said.

Each of the bills makes no substantive policy changes and was vetted during an initial meeting in December. Legislative subcommittee members were present at the meeting and made no changes to line items and amounts allocated at the time.

— Wendy Leonard, Twitter: wendyleonards