The Utah Legislature is often a place of conflicting views. Two national studies and the state's current rosy financial picture are fine examples of that.
Over the last several weeks Governing Magazine announced that Utah state government is, once again, one of the best-managed in the nation. Gov. Mike Leavitt and House and Senate leaders of both parties gladly publicly accepted those accolades.
But several days later, the CATO Institute in Washington, D.C., put out its ranking of governors. And Leavitt was called a big spender and got a "D" grade for overseeing a government that has basically doubled in size over 10 years. While the institute singled out Leavitt, in reality it's the Legislature that sets the budgets.
So, we have a well-managed, big-spending state that is run by — supposedly — conservative Republicans.
Now, on Thursday, we learn that the latest revenue projections for fiscal 2001-02 — the budget lawmakers are now setting — has $32 million less than previously believed.
House Republicans had already gotten their Senate colleagues to take $40 million off the spending table, set aside for possible tax cuts next year.
Thursday, GOP leaders were saying it's likely the $32 million shortfall in anticipated revenues will be taken out of that tax-cut pot.
This puts the 51 Republicans in the House and 20 in the Senate, many of whom ran for election in 2000 on fiscally conservative platforms, in the position of giving, perhaps, $5 million in small income-tax adjustments in a year of record state-revenue surpluses.
Even with the $32 million drop in revenue estimates that came Thursday, lawmakers still had around $655 million in one-time cash surpluses and new revenue growth this session to dole out to state programs, universities and public schools.
That's a record.
And those surpluses — and the hundreds of millions of dollars that legislators saw in the 1990s — are the reason the CATO Institute gives Leavitt a "D" in spending.
At the same time, it must be noted that previous legislatures over the past decade, along with Leavitt, gave tax cuts that, today, have a cumulative total of more than $1.2 billion. And even with all that spending, Utah's schools still rank among the lowest in per-pupil spending. While teacher salaries have increased markedly the past several years, Utah is behind most of the rest of the nation there as well.
We need more prison space, more Highway Patrol troopers (and better pay for them), more social workers, more foster parents and aid for the disabled. Our state parks drastically need repair, and state buildings, including the Capitol itself, are falling apart.
Still, on the surface, one would think that Utah lawmakers — whom some consider among the most conservative in the nation — would give more than a $5 million tax cut in a year with record revenues and a budget exceeding $7 billion.
We'll see what happens.
In any case, once again Utahns will likely see a conservative, GOP-dominated Legislature spend an amount of new money that is greater than population and inflation — a philosophical situation that some may be uncomfortable with.
On another topic, the 2001 session so far has been relatively mild. There are still some battles to fight: hazardous waste fees, tax credits for parents whose kids go to private schools, hate crimes and so on.
But so far, it's lacked some of the drag-down fights of the 1990s. And Leavitt has been almost invisible. He has been walking upstairs from his second-floor office to meet privately with House Speaker Marty Stephens and Senate President Al Mansell about governance of the Applied Technology Centers. But he hasn't addressed the House or Senate GOP caucuses yet (he usually does at least once a session).
Some of the natural shows of recent sessions are gone. Democratic Attorney General Jan Graham used to get into it with lawmakers over this or that each session. But Graham retired, and the new attorney general, Republican Mark Shurtleff, has not been seen much in the legislative arena.
There have been a few public demonstrations — college students were on the Capitol front steps this week. But, again, the public hasn't been yelling at lawmakers as in some years past.
Of course, most bills will be passed in the last eight days before adjournment, and the budget will be adopted a week from today.
It ain't over until it's over, as they say.
Deseret News political editor Bob Bernick Jr. may be reached by e-mail at bbjr@desnews.com .