This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The Great Recession wreaked havoc on state government finances throughout the Intermountain West, but only Utah was well positioned to deal with the fallout from the downturn.
A new study from Brookings Mountain West and the Morrison Institute at Arizona State University notes the recession that followed the collapse of the nation's housing market forced all the states in the region to confront the imbalances between their revenue and spending.
"A moment of reckoning has arrived, after all," the report said.
During much of the 1990s and again in the mid-2000s, California and the Mountain States of Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Utah enjoyed years of economic growth that produced what appeared to be robust budgets.
Yet now the illusion has been shattered and, with the exception of Utah, those states are struggling to close monumental budget gaps.
In contrast, after several years of austerity that saw legislators cut more than $1 billion from state government, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has proposed a budget that includes more than $216 million in additional spending that is anticipated to be funded by economic growth.
"Unlike a lot of states, Utah has policies and practices in place that allowed it to adjust its budget as it went along. It was able to make small, early adjustment and avoided the need for massive cuts that could have done deep and lasting damage," said Mark Muro, a co-director of Brookings Mountain West, which is a partnership between the Brookings Institution and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Royce Van Tassell, vice president at the Utah Taxpayers Association, said all states have written into their constitutions requirements that they balance their budgets, but Utah has remained committed to paying for ongoing programs with ongoing tax revenue while others states frequently borrow money to pay for programs.
"It is one of the reasons why Utah is consistently named one of the best managed states in the country," he said.