All Posts
The Budgeting Balance: Revenues, Requests, and Reality
In December, Legislative economists provided updated revenue estimates to the Executive Appropriations Committee, along with a summary of how current spending and statutorily required and...
January 27, 2025
Now You See Me: The Illusion of Revenue Timing
A quick glance at the December Revenue Snapshot shows a relatively bleak picture of year-to-date (YTD) state revenue collections, particularly for Income Tax Fund (ITF)...
January 21, 2025
Fiscal Notes 101
Loyal readers of budget.utah.gov may recall this post from last month, summarizing the latest technology upgrades for the Fiscal Note system (FiNS). As a reminder,...
January 3, 2025
Resolution for Results: LFA Operations and Performance Team Annual Recap
2024 marked the third year for the Legislative Fiscal Analyst’s Operations and Performance Team (Ops. Team). In addition to completing three efficiency evaluations for the...
December 27, 2024
On Solid Ground: How the Public Education Budget Framework Provides Stability
During the 2020 General Session, the Legislature passed H.B. 357, “Public Education Funding Stabilization.” The bill, which was contingent on the passage of Constitutional Amendment...
December 20, 2024
Drowning in Fiscal Notes? Try FiNs!
During the 2024 interim, the Legislative staff have been hard at work designing and testing a new fiscal note system, intended to improve the user...
December 6, 2024
LFA Publishes Summary of Governor’s Budget Recommendations for the 2025 General Session
On Thursday, December 5th, Governor Spencer Cox released his Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Recommendations, and in doing so formally kicked off the budget season. In...
December 5, 2024
Late Autumn Revenues Fall Short of Projections
On Wednesday, November 20th, legislative and executive branch economists released the revenue update for November, detailing collections for the first four months of Fiscal Year...
November 20, 2024
The Severance Reference: Mapping Oil, Gas, and Mining Taxes in the Budget
The tax generated by the sale of oil and natural gas, and the mining of various compounds is a complicated, and widely discussed piece of...
November 15, 2024
At Your Service: Statewide Internal Service Funds
You may recall last August when we discussed Internal Service Funds (ISFs) as they relate to the Attorney General’s Office. Today, we take a step...
November 8, 2024
TIF Talk: Understanding the Lingo of Transportation Funding
The Transportation Investment Fund of 2005 (or TIF for short) is one of the largest accounts in the state budget, with revenues of over $3.2...
November 1, 2024
Trust the Process: Prepping Budgets for the General Session
During the Legislative "off season," appropriations subcommittees are hard at work diving into the nitty-gritty, budgetary details that no General Session allows enough time to...
October 18, 2024