Lawmakers, Leavitt stuck over budget

GOP Gov. Mike Leavitt and Republican legislative leaders can't agree on how to cut millions of dollars from the revenue-bleeding state budget.

So they will just publicly thank each other for trying and legislators will carry sharp knives into the 2002 Legislature to cut budgets.

"There is no deal, and I don't think there will be" on how to cut $177 million from the 2001-2002 budget, House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, R-Layton, said Tuesday afternoon. He was clearly not pleased with the impasse, saying leaders would meet with Leavitt during legislative interim day Wednesday.

"There will be a joint statement (from legislative leaders and Leavitt), perhaps Wednesday, saying we appreciate efforts on all sides" but that there is no resolution, said House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West.

Legislative leaders were supposed to be given new revenue projections from their staff Tuesday, but the unavailability of figures from the state Tax Commission caused a postponement of that report until next month. If the estimates are better than Leavitt's made a month ago, then spending differences could fall by the wayside.

What's happening is not a constitutional crisis. It will be resolved one way or another, sooner or later, all agree. But it may end up in a constitutional amendment and new laws that restrict Leavitt's executive budget-cutting powers and allow lawmakers to call themselves into a special session anytime they want. Only the governor can call special legislative sessions; he alone sets the agenda.

Last month Leavitt announced a $177 million shortfall in revenue this current budget year. He asked state department bosses — except those in public and higher education and public safety — to trim 4 percent from their budgets. He later asked them to find more money that could be held back.

But the governor also said he wants to take $67 million from the state's $120-million Rainy Day Fund — the state savings account — to make up the rest of the projected loss.

That angered many GOP legislators. Both the House and Senate Republican caucuses voted to have Leavitt call lawmakers into a November special session so they could make deeper cuts. Senate Republicans went a step further, voting not to touch the Rainy Day Fund.

Leavitt spokeswoman Natalie Gochnour says a special session has not been ruled out. If lawmakers accept one of Leavitt's four options on balancing the budget, "it could happen," she said. "He has agreed to manage the budget to the most narrow" difference between the House and Senate leadership and his options, she said.