This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Two key budget proposals by Gov. Gary Herbert were given a thumbs down Friday by a budget committee.
Members rejected a proposal to shift transportation money to education, and also voted down a proposed hiatus in a program to build a new state liquor store each year.
Herbert had proposed to cut transportation funding by $10 million this year, $20 million next year, $30 million the next, and so forth until $50 million a year was cut thereafter. Over the next 11 years, that would take an estimated $450 million from state roads and give it to education.
Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, Senate chairman of the Infrastructure and General Appropriations Subcommittee, said his panel decided that proposal would hurt transportation too much, and chose not to accept it.
"I don't want to have to go back and start bonding again," or borrowing, for major projects now in long-range state plans, Harper said.
At Harper's request, the Utah Department of Transportation earlier this month provided a list of projects that could be delayed by the governor's proposed funding shift.
It included such things as continued work to convert Bangerter Highway into a freeway, continuing work on the Mountain View Corridor freeway and on the proposed West Davis Corridor freeway.
Harper said action by his subcommittee does not mean the governor's proposal is dead — the Executive Appropriations Committee could still resurrect it — but his committee recommends against it.
Another proposal advancing in the Legislature could also make similar cuts to transportation. SB80 proposes similar-sized cuts to roads in order to fund water projects — perhaps including the controversial Lake Powell pipeline.
The subcommittee also voted to spend $5 million to build a new liquor store in Syracuse next year with revenue bonds, which Herbert had left out of his budget.
When the committee earlier asked why he dropped it, Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control officials said some had questioned an earlier study that said 12 new stores were needed along the Wasatch Front — and many cities opposed putting new liquor stores in their boundaries.
However, Syracuse had agreed to one, so the committee approved construction to keep alive what has been a plan to build one store a year to meet growing demand.