Money for Medicaid and education will be among the top priorities for the 2018 state legislative session that opens on Jan. 22, according to Tooele County’s legislators.
“The budget is one of the most important things we do every year,” said Rep. Merrill Nelson, R-Grantsville.
Once revenue projections are confirmed, funding for education and Medicaid will be important priorities, along with reinvesting in the state’s rainy day fund, which hasn’t been fully restored following the Great Recession, according to Nelson.
“We need to look at Medicaid and how we can take care of the state’s needy,” he said.
Medicaid has to be a part of the budget discussion, according to Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, whose district also includes part of Tooele County.
“Medicaid is the largest and fastest growing part of the state budget,” he said.
With growth in revenue projected for 2018, Gov. Gary Herbert has recommended spending most of that growth on public and post-secondary education.
After setting aside $35 million of new revenue for the state’s rainy day fund, Herbert’s budget proposal calls for a 4-percent increase in the state’s per pupil funding, which would put an additional $121 million in the hands of local school boards. The governor also proposed $34 million for students at risk of academic failure, $25 million for property tax equalization, and an additional $102 million for post-secondary education.
The Legislature has already started its budget process, according to Rep. Doug Sagers, R-Tooele.
“We started six months ago looking at department budgets line by line,” Sagers said. “With positive revenue projections, this will be a good budget year. We will have some exchanges with the governor before a final budget is approved.”
In addition to funding for Medicaid and education, Sagers is working on a proposal to fund economic development and job creation in rural counties, including Tooele County.
“In 2016, the Legislature appropriated $53 million to build a coal port in California,” Sagers said. “That money was never spent. I would like to use that $53 million to create an economic development revolving loan fund for rural counties. It could be used for things like building infrastructure.”
Thatcher has several legislative initiatives planned for the 2018 session. Among those, he is reviving his victim selection penalty enhancement bill that he introduced in 2017.
He avoids calling it a hate crime bill.
“I don’t like hate crime laws,” Thatcher said. “They have been struck down as unconstitutional.”
Instead of making a new crime, Thatcher proposes allowing the penalty for crimes to be enhanced after a conviction for a crime, when it is proved that the victim was selected because of the victim’s characteristics such as ethnicity, race, religion or sexial orientation.
The state already has provisions for penalty enhancement during the sentencing phase for other reasons, according to Thatcher.
Thatcher will also introduce legislation to create a certification process for mental health outreach teams. Thatcher said his intent is to create something like an EMT for mental health crises.
“Mental health issues are now one out of every six 911 calls,” Thatcher said. “Imagine if one out of every six calls were for house fires and we said ‘Sorry, we don’t have a fire department.’“
Nelson said he doesn’t expect any immediate legislative relief for Tooele County’s traffic problems in the 2018 legislative session, but he is working on the issue.
He will host a meeting on Feb. 6 at the Stansbury High School auditorium from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. with Carlos Braceras, director of the Utah Department of Transportation and UDOT’s Region 2 Director Brian Adams, along with other UDOT officials, Nelson said.
“The public will be invited,” Nelson said. “It will be a time for a respectful exchange of ideas.”
Speaker of the House Greg Hughes has tapped Nelson to sponsor legislation to clarify the relationship between the Legislature and the state attorney general.
Nelson has also prepared a bill to allow a local option tax on sand and gravel extraction.
“We don’t want to make it burdensome, and it won’t be a source of general revenue,” said Nelson. “But we need a way for municipalities and counties to recoup the expenses of the impact on their roads from gravel and sand extraction.”
The 2018 legislative sessions start on Jan. 22 and ends March 8.