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The Utah Legislature concluded its 2025 General Session with a budget of $30.8 billion for fiscal year 2026. The budget includes $12.7 billion from state funds (General Fund, Income Tax Fund, and Uniform School Fund). Top legislative budget priorities included state fund investments in:                                 As required by the Utah Constitution, legislators balanced the budget to projections […]

Ingredients: Instructions: Yield: one balanced budget. Recipe Notes: The reports referenced in this post are available at the following links:February Revenue Snapshot (FY 25)Tax Commission Revenue Summary (Period 6, FY 2025)Revenue Publications Archive

Every year, the Legislature passes a bill that adjusts the ongoing base funding for state employees’ compensation, sometimes referred to as the “compensation bill” or just the “comp bill.” This bill has a lot of moving parts, making its nickname very appropriate—it’s not just “comp-ensation,” it’s also “comp-licated!” Many factors (such as cost-of-living changes, adjustments […]

Passed on the 10th day of session, the base budget bills for state agencies provide important direction for state agencies in the upcoming budget year. Included for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 is intent language establishing line item performance measures for most line items of every agency. This post will serve as a refresher on what […]

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 recommended revenue set asides paints a narrow margin for new spending during the General Session. As discussed last week, recent trends in collections are likely attributable to timing, and February’s […]

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) collections which indicated a -4.3% year over year (YoY) growth rate as of the date of the report. With what may appear to be a sleight of hand, a second […]

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, FiNS is the vehicle for drafting the very popular financial impact analyses that are attached to every piece of proposed legislation. In preparation for for the upcoming General Session, the […]

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 Departments of Corrections, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture and Food, the team also worked to further improve budgetary performance measurement and idea sharing through cross-pollination with other states. Improving […]

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 G, laid the foundation for the annual adjustments of the Public Education budget framework. The framework includes mechanisms to address three areas of volatility in the public education budget: enrollment […]

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 experience for policymakers, staff, and state agencies. The updated system, dubbed “FiNS” (Fiscal Note System), is in the final stages of deployment in preparation for the 2025 General Session. The […]

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 the state government rendition of letters sent to Santa, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget submits the statutorily required list of recommended investments to the Legislative Fiscal Analyst (LFA) […]

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 (FY) 2025. The Revenue Summary (TC-23) published by the Tax Commission tallies funds collected by the state, while the impact of those collections is interpreted in the Revenue Snapshot co-produced […]

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 the state budget. Severance tax applies to the “upstream” activity within the extractive industries, where the resource is severed from the land. Any oil, gas, or mining production in the […]

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 back and review how Internal Service Funds play a role in the state’s budget. Function and Purpose of ISFs The purpose of an ISF is for an agency to provide […]

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 billion in FY 2025. While appropriations for transportation projects represent a significant part of the state’s budget, the funding sources for these projects can be a bit confusing. In committees, […]

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 explore. These deep dives are organized under the Accountable Budget Process, a statutory requirement set in motion by H.J.R. 18 from the 2019 General Session. This process allows subcommittees to […]

Within the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE), the Legislature actively funds 13 scholarship programs centrally located and overseen by the Utah Board of Higher Education (UBHE) and the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education. Each of these programs was created statutorily, and are budgeted under the USBE Student Assistance line item. Each of […]

The Fiscal Health Dashboard is a one-stop shop for legislators and constituents to answer questions about Utah’s current and long-term financial position. The Legislative Fiscal Analyst developed the dashboard in compliance with both UCA 36-12-13(2)(h) and J.R. 3-2-402. Though the statutory and rule requirements are to prepare the legislature for an upcoming General Session, the […]

This fall, the leaves won’t be the only thing changing around the Capitol. During the 2024 General Session, the Legislature passed both a resolution and a bill that impact the appropriations process. This post summarizes how H.J.R. 23 and H.B. 335 will impact the budget even before the 2025 General Session gets underway. H.J.R. 23 […]

When the Legislature appropriates new funding for a project, it’s kind of like your family setting out on a road trip to your favorite theme park—if the journey is successful, you’ll make it to the place where all your dreams come true. Appropriating the funding is like getting on the freeway, it’s a starting point […]

In the 2021 General Session, the Legislature separated the Divisions of State Parks and Outdoor Recreation which were previously a single line item housed in the Department of Natural Resources. The following year, the Office of Outdoor Recreation in the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity was combined with the new division to complete a single […]

When conjuring a picture of the state’s budget, appropriations (authorized spending) and expenditures (actual spending) jump to the front of mind. However, both appropriations and expenditures hinge on revenues, both forecasted and collected. This flip side of the budget coin provides a unique challenge for policy makers, since revenues in the short term are largely […]

In July we covered the Statewide Master Plan, a guide for state office space planning and investments. In that post, it was discussed how both the 2023 and 2024 General Sessions contingently put money towards the Plan, if certain revenue collections materialized. The shortfall in FY 2023 resulted in a rescinded $125.0 million appropriation. During […]

In June, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) opened the doors on its latest store, an upgrade for the Salt Lake City Downtown location which was considered out of date and undersized. This first ever two-story location featuring nearly 40 doors of refrigerated products is perhaps the latest example of the shift initiated by […]

According to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, average rental prices along the Wasatch Front climbed more than 20% from 2020 to 2021. While the State of Utah’s Housing Market Report (report) does note contraction in the housing market in 2023, the implications of interest rates and the pandemic on Utah’s housing market are enduring: […]

During the 2013 General Session, the Legislature passed H.B. 129, “Amendments to Powers, Functions, and Duties of Office of Legislative Fiscal Analyst,” which required the Office to develop and publish a taxpayer receipt. The receipt is intended to answer the question of how an individual’s tax dollars are expended for government purposes. The receipt does […]

The Statewide Master Plan guides investments in existing state office space and supports the new construction of carefully planned rural centers. The first master plan for state buildings was completed in January 2021 by the Division of Facilities Construction and Management (DFCM). The plan evaluated 215 state-owned and state-leased office spaces and laid out multiple […]

Salaries have long been a focal point in discussions about education funding. Teachers are fundamental to our educational system, and debates about their compensation have focused on adequacy, fairness, and impact on recruitment and retention. In Utah, salaries for public educators are comprised of state, local, and federal funds. Ultimately, the total amount a teacher […]

In February 2022, the first of several large settlements was finalized in the nationwide, multi-district litigation against opioid manufacturers and distributors. These settlements, worth an estimated $26 billion, were with Janssen (J&J) and the “Big 3 Distributors” (Cardinal, McKesson, and Amerisource Bergen). Additional settlement agreements have been reached with McKinsey and Company (a consulting firm […]

Local jails play a significant role in Utah’s criminal justice system. Specifically, county jails serve an important function by housing a portion of state inmates and certain probationers (who are sentenced to serve in a county jail as a condition of their probation). The program that pays for state inmates to use local facilities is […]

2024 Third Special Session Fiscal Impacts During Wednesday’s Special Session, the legislature considered five bills and two resolutions. Only two of those bills or resolutions had direct, measurable fiscal impacts to the state: June Revenue Reports These positive fiscal impacts, however small, were welcomed by the relatively stagnant revenue growth observed in the latest revenue […]

On Friday, May 17th, the Tax Commission along with the Legislative Fiscal Analyst and Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget released the latest revenue monitoring reports, detailing collections through May 9th. Through 10 months of the fiscal year (FY), revenues to all state funds have kept pace with the astronomical collections observed during tax season […]