Utah lawmakers had more than $700 in surplus funds to spend this year. Utahns think those big surpluses should be spent on state needs rather than cutting taxes.
A new UtahPolicy.com survey finds more than 2/3rds of Utahns think the legislature should spend surplus monies meeting state needs rather than cutting taxes. Just 25% say tax cuts would be the way to go.
The $739 million surplus was mostly made up of one-time money but is also included more than $300 million in ongoing funds.
Support for using those surpluses for state programs is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and independent voters. 65% of Republicans, 87% of Democrats and 68% of independents oppose using surplus funds for tax cuts.
Utah's economy is booming following the great recession. State lawmakers had to cut programs drastically because of falling state revenues. Now it seems Utahns would like legislators to make up for those cuts with excess state revenues.
Legislators did put more than $500 million of funding into public education, which was one of the funding areas hardest hit by the recession. Despite that large infusion of cash, education funding in Utah still hasn't rebounded to pre-recession levels.
The survey was conducted for UtahPolicy.com by Dan Jones and Associates among 406 registered voters. It has a margin of error of +/- 4.86%.
