Music, arts fare well in funding
House and Senate Republicans approved almost $4 million in spending for nearly three dozen funding requests, ranging from land-use studies or administrative costs to arts programs. Most of these funding priorities are only tens of thousands of dollars, and none of them exceeded $1 million.
The funding priorities, although normally distributed evenly between the House and Senate, were disproportionately heavy on Senate spending. The Senate spent $2.9 million while the House spent only $1 million.
At the end of the session, however, both bodies will have spent about $3 million.
"The Senate is more willing to spend than we are," House Budget Chairman Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley, said. "We're a little concerned because we like to leave some money on the table at the end."
Senators, however, simply spent all of their allocated money to get their budget as close to finished as possible, said Senate Budget Chairman Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan.
"We get everything done," he said. "We don't have to worry that on the last night we will have $2 million sitting around," because it is too tempting for legislators to try to fund things that were not prioritized.
Other festivals receiving money include the Utah Festival Opera in Logan ($800,000), the Moab Music Festival, ($50,000), and the Indian Summer Story Telling Festival in Vernal ($25,000).
The funding priorities can serve as relatively cheap ways for legislators to fund pet — or pork, as the case may be — projects in their home district. For example, Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, will bring $200,000 to the Ogden Treehouse Museum, despite some confusion among his fellow Republicans about the purpose of the museum.
And in a move that may be considered indicative of the kinder, gentler legislative session, the Republicans treated their minority counterparts well. In both the House and Senate, at least a third of the priorities were sponsored by Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, who had three of his bills with fiscal notes approved by the Senate Republicans, said that he was very pleased with how the Democrats were treated throughout the session. The fact their funding requests were granted was just one more sign that working with the Republican majority, instead of fighting them, is more effective.
"In the Senate, we've fared very well," he said. "Practically everything we wanted to get funded was funded. They have a leadership that cooperated with us, and we worked with them."
E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com
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