Hello everybody welcome to The County Seat,
I'm your host today Chad Booth. Well the New
Year is underway and the legislature is just
around the corner which means that there is
this big ocean of bills that has to go through this
narrow little channel in 45 days and get out at
the end. There are probably 1500 bills filed and
there may be 400 to 500 that get passed. What
we are going to discuss today is what is
important to the counties today and nobody
better to pick up that topic than Adam Trupp
CEO of the Utah Assoc. of Counties, thank you
Adam. And Lincoln Shurtz who is the director of
legislative affairs for the Utah Assoc. of
Counties. So let's prioritize and talk about what
is really important for the counties. Obviously
most of the late year headline is centered on
operation Rio Grande which is tied into the
Justice Reinvestment Initiative which is tied into
Medicaid expansion. We have this whole big
picture that is kind of a mess are we going to
pick this up in the legislative session again this
year?
Well we certainly are. What we see from
Justice Reinvestment and what we see from the
Rio Grande project is that all of these issues are
connected to each other really. The criminal
justice system has an impact on people with
substance disorders, disorders of mental health
problems and vice versa and the reality is that
spreads out to many things like housing needs
like recovery needs and services for people who
are in that situation so the reality is it continues
to grow we have a lot more issues that come up
and we are seeing more realistic over time. It
will be back.
So people will go back in the headlines and they
will go well November you just got a big chunk
of money.
Sure absolutely. So one thing you need to do
when you are looking at governments is look at
what the governor has done with his budget.
The best way to evaluate an administration and
see what their priorities are is by looking at
their budget. The governor just came out with
his 16 billion dollar budget and a huge emphasis
on education and a huge emphasis on health
care and Rio Grande and Justice Reinvestment
which is really something we find valuable is
that the governor is prioritizing some of the
major issues in the counties namely justice
reinvestment and recognizing with Medicaid
expansion which recently adopted by the state
and approved for the center for Medicaid
services big priority for the counties and
something that has been prioritized for the
governor as well so that is great for us.
focus is around Pioneer Park. That looks like
the focal point of whoever is talking about the
money is it going to get out to the other 28
counties?
It definitely will that is the focus of what is
getting all the attention in the media. Our
weekly discussion and I think governor's office
and legislative leadership has heard it all are
those needs that occur in other places outside
and they are also pretty significant. There are
homeless issues all over the state there are
treatment needs and criminal justice needs all
these things.
When Representative Hutchins got JRI in and
through and got buy in from the counties and
everybody was pretty upbeat about it but he
was counting on Healthy Utah Initiative to fund
it and that didn't come through and he said well
I have money to cover it but it was like 4 million
dollar?
4 million to the counties and about 10 million
dollars to the Department of corrections for
services there. You have to remember when
you are talking healthy Utah you are talking
about expanding health care coverage to about
a 50 thousand Utahans under the expansion
that was recently passed we are talking 7500
Utahns so it has certainly scaled back from the
original concept but it is a target of population
which is really the JRI population its folks who
have substance abuse disorders and mental
health disorders and criminally justice involved
so if you talk about that population clearly we
are focusing on that population that was the
emphasis behind JRI.
So do you think that we are now talking in the
kinds of numbers if we get some ongoing
funding for it that we will actually kind of turn
the problem and maybe keep it from cropping
up in say Juab County or something like that.
We are not certain. I would say that there is a
large influx of money that is great. We have
opportunities that kind of funding provides the
question is can we all together make the system
work? Can we make improvements when we
have the funding and that really is the bigger
question? And this is not a matter of throwing
a lot of money at something it's a matter of
trying to find a solution to a really complicated
problems and trying to find ways of getting
people into recovery and being helpful
members of society instead of being trapped in
their illness that really is the bigger challenge.
The bigger issue there is everyone is trying to
lay blame at JRI and I am not saying JRI does not
have an impact you have to also remember the
overlay of opioid epidemic that is ravishing this
entire country. This is not just a JRI problem
this is an opioid epidemic problem that we are
trying to deal with certainly the 30 million the
state put in to expansion plus the 70 million we
will draw down from the federal government
100 million dollars in the system is going to help
with behavioral health. It's a lot of money but
is an overwhelming epidemic that is plaguing
every community in the state.
Is there any community in Utah that you think is
exempt from the opioid problem?
Certainly not in our conference 4 weeks ago
every single county commissioner we talked to
is talking about this is plaguing members of
their community.
up this particular topic and move onto our next
topic after we take a quick commercial break
here on The County Seat. Stay with us.
Welcome back to The County Seat we are
talking about important things from the
counties that are going to be discussed during
this legislative session we have covered JRI and
now we want to turn to 25,000 jobs in 25
counties it was an outgrowth of the State of the
State address of the governor and kind of got
some traction. So far the governor has been in
the process of meeting with all the counties and
trying to figure out what to do. What do we
need to do legislatively to really turn economic
development into high gear into rural Utah?
I would start with infrastructure, infrastructure,
and infrastructure. If ever you talk to these
counties that are the target of the 25,000 jobs
initiative the biggest gaping hole in terms of
their economic development package is lack of
infrastructure. Any time a company is looking
to locate to the state of Utah some of the
critical things that they are looking for is
obviously transportation ability to get in and
out of the state quickly especially when you are
looking at distribution which has been a huge
issue for the state when we are talking
intermodal hub inland port full port all of these
things that have been major initiatives for the
state. So that is one piece. The other piece is
recognizing the economy is changing in the e
25 targeted counties if you look at economic
prosperity since the great recession you have
about 12 counties that have actually seen
declines in their economies in the last seven
years and those declines are largely related to
natural resources abstraction. We are not
extracting coal like we once were. So changing
the face of what their economy looks like
globally is going to be a big issue for Emery
county and Carbon county and Uintah basin.
seven years for seven years we have talked
about the fact to get businesses to relocate to
rural counties you do have to have that
infrastructure in place and it's a chicken and egg
thing. But there have been a couple of case
studies places where a county like Juab county
will take a project on that comes from GOED
and they will go the whole nine yards to fill in all
the gaps that it takes to make it go and then
they say that's too much and it gets short
circuited but it seems to me it would help other
businesses down the line with what they
started. How do you get the mentality of the
rural communities and the state on the same
page as to getting what they need done that
would be my question.
Sure I think part of it is recognizing that we are
moving more toward a service based economy
the entire economy is changing in terms of how
we buy and sell goods you do not have to go to
a brick and mortar store to buy and sell goods
people can remotely work from their home so
access to high speed fiber and internet is going
to be a critical component of allowing people to
work from their homes remotely which is
certainly going to be something as we move
forward and also like I have said just looking at
way in which we can invest in the infrastructure
to allow for different types of economic
development. One of the big things you are
seeing right now especially with these big data
centers they are looking at locating again as the
economy changes guess where they want to get
their power they want it from renewables those
renewable do not have to be co-located with
the data center. So you could have a renewable
solar farm in Emery County that is supplying the
power to the data center that sits in West
Jordan city and so we need to look at how we
can collaborate among communities to bring
that economic development that can both help
the Wasatch Front but also be a boon and
benefit to rural Utah.
And we have seen legislative changes over the
last few years to help with infrastructure and
different forms and give opportunities to
smaller population counties but the reality is
that the biggest need probably to move that
idea forward is to for people to collaboratively
get together and say how we are going to make
this work for multiple counties. Not just hey
there is an idea we want to pursue but how are
we going to make this work between 3 or 4
counties right now. How are we going to make
this work for the Wasatch county front by
supporting those needs through our rural
counties?
Isn't part of it though having realistic
expectations the state will call Piute County and
say hey we might have a lead that will put 600
jobs in your county 600 jobs would bury Piute
County they would be thrilled if at 100 jobs. Is
the governor listening to this matching?
Absolutely and like you said recognizing what
will work in different communities airbus and
Boeing are not going to move to Piute county
and we need to recognize that they should not
be putting in on those sorts of projects but
there are things that they can put in on that
they do have a viable chance of getting to
locate here in the state of Utah. So looking at
our tourism is part of the governor's budget he
invested a lot of money into promoting tourism
and rural tourism in the state of Utah
recognizing that could be a huge boon for these
communities as well.
I would add as well none of us can avoid
noticing that the state is growing tremendously
and there is more business coming in more
infrastructure more of everything coming into
the state that will spread out over time but I
think that if we do not plan where we are going
if we do not look to Juab county which borders
Utah county and ask what do we do next how
do we help them to grow to where they want to
be and help them get to the place that really is
the community we all want jointly we are not
making real progress all we are doing is
spreading out growth more and so we have
more opportunity and I t think we are on track
but need more planning and more collaborative
approaches.
Are there any bills that you have heard
rumblings of that are going to come up on this
issue?
Most of the bills that we are looking at this year
are largely focused on just getting a better
handle on what the issue is and recognizing that
half of this state is getting left behind in terms
of the economic boom we are experiencing and
I think once we have that recognition those
solutions will follow
Excellent we are going to take a commercial
break and move onto our next topic and you
are watching The County Seat.
Welcome back to The County Seat we are just
doing a coin toss here to say who takes the next
topic the next topic we are going to talk about is
transportation. Takes many many forms most
of the conversation I have heard in the media
lately has been about Utah Transit Authority
and reconfiguring the board and the governing
authority. Do the counties have an opinion on
this?
Certainly let me back up a little bit.
Transportation task force was authorized last
year it has been running throughout the
summer talking about a host of issues. The 3
major issues funding, government largely
related to transit and then the last piece how
do we deal with capacity how do we deal with
the growth we are experiencing in the state of
Utah. As it relates to the governance piece the
proposal on the table is to take the 16 member
board down to a 3 member commission that
would be a full time publically accountable
commission and the idea is with that
accountability would come greater oversite so
that is the e expression of the speaker and
another person who has really tried to push this
model. From a county perspective the one thing
we want to make sure we are the bodies that
have imposed the taxes that fund the UTA so as
long as we have representation on those boards
and feel as though we have adequate oversite
for the tax dollars we have authorized we are
going to be comfortable with the proposal and
we have been working with leadership on
solution that would give us great oversite
through adversary committees and alike on that
commission.
I would say if you have a commission and you
are looking for taxation and representation and
you have got what 8 or 9 counties that are
involved in UTA and you got 3 members on the
commission how is that one going to feel left
out?
So the idea is you will have a 3 member
commission that they all kind of coalesce
around those selections and those nomination
than you will have a 7 member advisory
committee that would have representatives
from each county that are really think of a
planning commission they provide advice to the
commission the commission can then take that
advice and the hope is through that advisory
committee process will have adequate
representation. So in fact when we say it is 16
member reduced to 3 it's really 16 members to
10 if you have a robust advisory committee of 7
members in addition to the 3 member
commission.
So how do you get fiduciary responsibility do
you elect the commission or is that going to be
an appointment?
The commission is an appointment so we would
provide names to the governor and the
governor would send those names to the
senate for confirmation so it would be similar to
many other boards and commissions
throughout the state.
The benefit obviously you have a smaller group
of people who are directly accountable it's a lot
easier with a larger board to be able to say well
we are going to come into agreement or 9 of us
when one direction the others went the other
direction 3 people you do have accountability
and a clear line of responsibility. The concept
does work but I agree with Lincoln there has to
be some advisory structure too.
The concept is with the 3 member commission
hopefully that give as the public some sense of
security that there is some oversite that has
been lacking in the past. With that oversite
maybe additional comfort to imposing the Prop
1 monies to fund transit and other multimodal
aspects of our transportation that we are going
to need.
ago that mass transit was actually going to take
hold in Utah wouldn't you agree that you
thought that was crazy?
Sure I do not think that 20 years ago we
thought we would have another million and half
people living in this valley which is what we
expect by 2040 so with the 2 mountain ranges
we are constrained. We cannot build more
roads because we are running out of space to
build more roads. So the idea that you have to
live multimodaly and we have to find ways in
which we coordinate our development and
coordinate our transportation is going to be
critical to accommodate the growth we are
expecting.
What other transportation issues are the B and
C roads the county roads and the highways are
they finally settled.
For the B and C roads which are our city and
county roads they are mostly settled. They are
ways that are pretty robust conversation about
land use planning and transportation funding so
we do anticipate we are going to be looking at
additional alternatives for transportation
funding. The one that is probably the most
salient that is being discussed is an alternative
to the gas tax. Recognizing that we have more
electric vehicles who are not paying gas tax so
how are we going to fund the roads in the
future as heavily reliant on gas tax as we are
today. looking at alternatives to that and ways
in which we can tax appropriately electric
vehicles for their use of the roads is another
major issue that they are looking for so lots of
discussions registration fees gas taxes user fees
etc. . .
I was going to say as a per mile option actually
ever get that passed?
They want to do a pilot program this year and
give the authority to UDOT to actually
constitute a VMT a vehicle miles tax taskforce
that would look at instituting at instituting
something like that.
We have covered transportation one more
round in the ring one more bell to ring we will
be back in just a minute on The County Seat.
Welcome back to The County Seat our final
topic of things to discuss in the legislature that
the counties are interested in is going to be the
issue of tax reform. Obviously at a national
level they have passed a major tax reform and
for the most part people are happy with it
unless you live in a high property tax state in
which people are not so happy but Utah has
managed itself fairly well and so this looks like a
benefit. How do you translate that down into
state level tax reform?
One of the big issues that you just alluded to is
the state local tax issue. So in the final package
up to 10,000 dollars in state and local taxes can
be essentially pulled off of your federal returns
that includes your property taxes as well as
your state income taxes with our income taxes
as low as it is by comparison to other state this
will cover most Utahns which is a good thing. In
addition one of the major benefits of federal tax
reform is kudos to Senator Mike Lee who
pushed for an increase in the child tax credit so
there was an increase their which will obviously
allow Utahns who have multiple children to
deduct those children at higher rates. So 2 big
benefits really tying into the momentum that
has been taking place federally you have to
remember this is the first major tax reform
since the Reagan administration there have
been changes but this has been major overhaul
really since the 80's and legislatures at the local
level are also looking to capitalize on that. So
there is an Omnibus bill about 200 pages that is
tackling everything from corporate income tax
personal income tax sales tax property tax all of
these issues and again trying to capitalize on
that momentum and then recognize it. Our
economy has changed since we have done stuff
locally. Using sales tax is the major funder of
state and local government probably isn't the
way to go any longer when you look at the way
in which we buy goods these days and what our
tax base looks like currently.
Is internet sales tax is that actually help cover
that sales tax gap?
Most of the major internet companies the
Amazons of the world are now paying sales tax
in the state of Utah so we have captured a good
portion of that economy certainly still some
escape that and most people are not filing there
user taxes which they are supposed to but
things are changing and part of the discussion
locally is expanding the tax base to include
some services right now it is largely held to
goods and if you look at the changing dynamics
of the economy most people are not buying as
many goods as they used to when we put the
sales tax in place much more are buying
services so looking at ways in which we can
include some of those services as a major
component in addition on the income tax there
has been a lot of discussion on education
funding. We in Utah have used the income tax
to fund education as we see the population
increases we are recognizing that there may
need to be some changes to the corporate and
personal income tax rates are on the table as
well.
If I remember correctly Utah's income tax is
based on a percentage of your federal tax, is it
not?
Correct, 5% roughly.
So if you have massive tax rate reductions at a
federal level is that going to have a negative
impact on Utah's budget?
Could potentially so that is one of the reasons
why they are looking at this because they know
everything that is done federally will have some
tie in to what is taking place locally as well there
is going to be some discussion around that
there has been some discussion namely through
an initiative process of increasing the rate on
the personal income tax to try and allow for
more money to flow to both public and higher
education as well.
Has there been any discussion about this whole
truth and taxation element where you have a
fixed budget regardless of what happens to
property values you are stuck it seems like it is
50/50. Some people say that is the only way to
fly some are saying well let things float a little
bit so that people are feeling like they are
paying the same tax rate and counties can put a
little rainy day money aside.
In terms of truth and taxation I think it's one of
the great savers for Utah. I personally really like
the system where you have to be accountable
go out to the public tell then what you are
doing where you are spending the money and if
you do it regularly and frequently I think you
can get past the fear that is truth and taxation.
The alternative systems that other states have
where you can ratchet it up based on the
increase in the value of the home they have had
huge backlashes to the property tax which we
have not experienced in Utah so while many
lament truth and taxation I truly see it as one of
our silent saviors to current property tax system
we have as really saved us from the revolt that
other states have experienced, similar to
California.
And there are periodic discussions about how
that can be changed. How there could be more
leeway given to county governments to modify
their rate and modify that process of truth and
taxation but I think Lincoln is right if a body
wants to increase the tax rate and increase
taxes on the public that's fine the process is
there the system is there it hurts for a while but
the reality is it is an open system if you go
through that periodically it's a better approach
than waiting years and then having to do it.
It hurts until you get voted out of office because
you are the one that had to raise the taxes that
had to be raised.
Absolutely. I think it is true too it does not
happen all the time but certainly people get
pretty annoyed when they have that detail but
the more they understand the more they can
make decisions.
Which leads us to the one big thing that is part
of the Omnibus tax bill is changing the ad
requirements. Right now there is a
requirement by law that you have to put an ad
in the newspaper not criticizing the Deseret or
Salt Lake Tribune not too many people are
taking the newspaper these days so maybe
modification to a thirty or forty thousand ad
that is required by law is something we should
look at so to make sure we are getting effective
information out to the public. There are some
things that need to change and it's been a long
time since I have looked at this stuff so certainly
the language we consumed is changed maybe
we change some of those dynamics as well.
Okay excellent we have gone all four rounds we
have done very well thank you for joining us on
The County Seat remember county government
is where your life happens follow us on Social
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