This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Utah legislators passed a balanced budget of $15.1 billion before adjourning Thursday. It includes $440 million in new public and higher education spending, expanded health care for the poorest Utahns and a 3 percent compensation hike for state workers.
That extra $440 million for education is about $18 million more than the governor requested. Senate Budget Chairman Lyle Hillyard said legislators swept corners looking for unused money or unneeded programs, and found $40 million to help schools.
The budget pays for the roughly 9,700 new students expected to enroll in Utah schools in the fall and increases overall per-pupil spending by about 3.75 percent.
"Approximately 70 percent of all the new money that we have in the budget is going to education," Gov. Gary Herbert said this week. "I think we are prioritizing correctly."
Utah Education Association President Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh said a 2.5 percent increase is the minimum required to maintain current school funding levels. That means little is left over, she said, for districts to increase teacher salaries or hire additional staff to shrink class sizes.
The budget includes a 2 percent salary increase for state workers, plus insurance cost increases equivalent to another 1 percent of salary.
It also includes about $15 million to pay for a just-passed expansion of Medicaid for 16,000 of the poorest Utahns.
Also, the budget removed a long-time requirement that legal-immigrant children must live in the country for five years before they can receive health care through Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).