This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Rep. Curt Oda has got part of the answer. The Clearfield Republican says that the fees from permits to carry concealed guns in Utah should go directly to the Bureau of Criminal Identification rather than to the general fund.
He's right that the program should pay for itself, eliminating the budget shortage of the BCI. But the Legislature should remain in the appropriations process to maintain oversight; it should allocate the money back to BCI from the general fund. In addition, lawmakers should increase the fees, especially for non-Utahns.
The fees from concealed-carry permits are expected to generate about $650,000 in income this year, but the Legislature appropriates only $88,000 to run the program. That falls hundreds of thousands of dollars short of expenses, which, among other things, arise from performing criminal background checks on permit applicants.
To make up for the shortfall, the BCI must delay other work or divert resources from other programs. One consequence has been a backlog in criminal background checks on schoolteachers and health-care workers. That's not a good trade-off.
The Legislature has known about this problem for five years but has done nothing about it. The Legislative Auditor General reported in 2001 that the concealed-carry permit program was not self-supporting and recommended that appropriations and fees be increased. According to the audit, the $35 fee for a new permit came close to covering costs, but the $10 renewal fee did not. The BCI must perform about the same amount of work for both.
Since the audit, the problem has gotten worse because Utah's concealed-carry permits have become more popular with out-of-state residents. About 58 percent of the 16,000 projected applicants in 2006 do not live in Utah.
People elsewhere like the Utah permits because they are relatively cheap, they are recognized in most other states and they are not particularly difficult to obtain.
They are issued to any applicant over the age of 21 who has not been convicted of a felony, a crime of violence or an offense involving alcohol, illegal drugs or moral turpitude, and who has not been judged mentally incompetent by a court.
An applicant must attend a firearms safety course, be fingerprinted and pass a criminal background check.
Fees should be adjusted and allocated so that this program is self-sustaining.