Going into the session, Huntsman outlined his priorities as education, clean air and health care reform. Education fared well, but ended up with less money than Huntsman requested, in part due to a lower-than-expected revenue surplus. Huntsman asked for a 7 percent increase in the per weighted pupil unit paid to schools -- funding that would include a $2,500 raise for teachers. Instead teachers received a $1,700 raise and the WPU was raised by 2.5 percent.
Mike Johnsen, Tooele County School District Superintendent, gave the session a mixed rating.
"The $1700 raise across the board was great for teachers, but with only a 2.5 percent increase in the WPU it will be hard to do everything we need to do," Johnsen said.
Early in the session, the governor and legislative leaders came to an agreement to form a task force that would study health care issues. The Legislature also fully funded the Children's Health Insurance Program and provided a tax credit for people buying their own health insurance. On the whole, however, the main issue of health care reform was postponed yet again.
On the clean-air front, several proposals were passed. One required public power suppliers to acquire 20 percent of their energy from renewable resources by 2025. A tax credit for solar projects was approved along with a tax credit for vehicles that meet clean air and mileage standards. School districts will also now be required to develop policies regulating the idling of school buses to reduce the amount of pollution they emit.
However, Tooele County legislators and representatives took a different set of priorities into the session. Although education was a shared issue, the local agenda also included water rights, the future of career and technical education in the county, protection of justice courts, and funding for a local juvenile receiving center.
Several additional education bills designed to help alleviate the state's teacher shortage passed. A scholarship program for paraeducators that want to become certified as teachers was approved, along with a program making it easier for teachers with expired certificates to re-enter the teaching field. A $4100 bonus for teachers of secondary math, integrated science, physics, and chemistry was also approved.
Many of these education initiatives were accomplished with one massive omnibus bill introduced on March 3. Senate Bill 2 combined 16 different education initiatives into one bill. After 15 floor amendments -- and being passed back and forth from the Senate to the House and back -- second substitute Senate Bill 2 emerged from a conference committee and was approved by both houses.
A measure to equalize school building funding was also approved. Driven largely by the split of the Jordan School District, the bill may bring up to $4 million in extra funding to help the fast-growing Tooele County School District.
Tooele County Commissioner Jerry Hurst and several county residents requested legislation to protect the water rights of individuals. In response, three bills were introduced: Senate Bill 85 to create a state Water Rights Board, Senate Bill 269 to make the state property rights ombudsman available to help individuals with water rights, and House Bill 51 that extended the time for forfeiture from non-use to seven instead of five years, and also protected the water rights of public water suppliers for reasonable future use. Both Senate bills passed the Senate but did not make it through the House by the end of the session. House Bill 51 did pass both houses and awaits approval by the governor.
Tooele County Attorney Doug Hogan got a win he was after when Senate Bill 72, which would have removed justice courts from local jurisdictions, was modified. With support by Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham, the original goal of the bill was to make justice courts independent from municipal entities in order to eliminate the appearance that those justice courts were operated as revenue generators for cities and counties.
After several amendments, the final version of the bill retains justice court judges as local employees, creates a judicial nominating committee to recommend judges to the appointing official in cities and counties, establishes pay guidelines for judges, and provides for the evaluation and retention election of justice court judges.
"In its final form, this was a good bill," said Hogan. "It retained local control of justice courts."
During the session, Tooele School District officials presented a plan for a shared career and technology education facility to be built in Tooele. The facility would provide education to high school students and adults, and eliminate the need for Tooele to bus students into Granite and Jordan district schools for CTE education. The plan met an unexpected twist when the Utah System of Higher Education Board of Regents recommended the merger of the Salt Lake-Tooele Applied Technology College with Salt Lake Community College. The Tooele County School District had been working with the Salt Lake-Tooele Applied Technology College to provide educational opportunities for Tooele students. The bill to authorize the consolidation was amended to allow Tooele schools to work with Davis Applied Technology College, with hopes that someday in the not too distant future there may be a Tooele Applied Technology College.
Members of Tooele's juvenile justice system, including law enforcement, Valley Mental Health, and county leaders have been working to establish a juvenile receiving center for at least five years. They received a big boost when the center was included in the governor's budget request. Rep. Ronda Menlove, R-Garland, made an impassioned plea for funding before the appropriations committee. After prioritizing all requests, the receiving center was listed 48 out of 50, meaning it's not likely to be funded this year.
Menlove, whose district includes Grantsville, also sponsored House Bill 297 to designate magnesium as the state metal. The U.S. Magnesium plant in Tooele county is the only place in North America where magnesium is produced. The bill received a hearing in the house, during which Grantsville High School students were able to testify in its favor, but before the bill could be voted on in the House it was pulled from the calendar by House leadership to make time for more vital legislation as the session came to a close.
Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com
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