Education officials still are dissatisfied with a 4.5 percent increase in the Weighted Pupil Unit. Low-income advocates are anxious about providing care for 43,000 indigent mentally ill Utahns. And, if lawmakers are honest, most of them have angst about pet projects left off the spending list.
"If I were king, this would not be my budget," said Senate Budget Chairman Lyle Hillyard.
But the list of projects - including $19 million to promote Utah tourism, $5 million to move Utah State University agriculture buildings to make way for a new technology campus, $5 million to defend Hill Air Force Base from closure, and $2 million to finish the Children's Museum of Utah - is a compromise between representatives, senators and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
"This represents as close as we will get to something we can live with," said House Budget Chairman Ron Bigelow.
Last week, lawmakers approved an $8.7 billion base budget that Huntsman signed in two bills Tuesday.
The governor still is lobbying for an additional $3 million for worker pay. But Huntsman budget Director Richard Ellis said the governor is content.
"Public education has gotten what we asked for. Higher education got more than we expected. Transportation got a lot more than we expected," Ellis said. "We have really resolved all the issues."
While Republican lawmakers have reached accord, Democrats have not signed off on their agreement. And during the Executive Appropriations Committee meeting Wednesday, minority lawmakers tried to amend the spending list to pull money out of the Rainy Day Fund and transportation to pay for social services - including $3 million for mentally ill Medicaid patients, $300,000 for at-home care for aging Medicaid patients and $400,000 for HIV medication - and $500,000 for trails. All of their attempts failed.
"We're using the same balanced budget process the Republicans are, we just have a different set of priorities," House Minority Leader Ralph Becker said. Democrats, outnumbered nearly 3-to-1, had to be satisfied with ineffectually voting against segments of the budget.
Hillyard and Bigelow pledged to consider those additional requests in the final budget legislation, called the "Bill of Bills," next week.
Although lawmakers have divvied up most of the money, funding for several bills is still in question. Senators want to scrape together funding for the Drug Offender Rehabilitation Act - $6.2 million the first year. House members are equally committed to put aside $1.6 million for the Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship to add to $1.4 million allocated last year. Together, both houses have just $4 million to dedicate to such "fiscal note" bills.
Other items, including $11 million to increase state salaries, will be funded next week.
Much of the money could come from the appropriation earmarked for the Rainy Day Fund, which lawmakers already have raided this week, whittling the line item from $54 million on Monday to $35 million on Wednesday - and Bigelow said he expects that number to drop again.
