Today, Gov. Spencer J. Cox released a comprehensive one-year progress report on the “Built Here” strategic plan. The update outlines significant milestones reached toward the administration’s goals in the areas of People, Place, and Prosperity.
“One year ago, with the release of our Built Here strategic plan, we outlined an ambitious set of priorities for the second term of our administration,” Gov. Cox said. “We committed to building a state where the American Dream is within reach for every Utahn, and today’s report shows that our disciplined approach to governance is delivering results. While there is more work to be done, Utah continues to lead the nation as a state of builders.”
Key highlights from the one-year update include:
- Improving access to high quality affordable healthcare for rural Utahns: Rural counties in the state added 76 new primary care providers, which represents a 6.4% increase in the total number of primary care providers in rural counties, exceeding the targeted increase of 5% by 2029. The state was also awarded $195 million for the upcoming fiscal year from the federal rural health transformation program.
- Reducing drug-related deaths: Drug related deaths fell by 9.4%, more than one third of the targeted decrease of 25% by 2029. The state helped increase access to opioid use disorder treatment, enhanced statewide training for law enforcement on crisis intervention and response, stepped up narcan and fentanyl test strip distribution, and performed community outreach and education on the harms of stimulant usage.
- Achieving better safety outcomes on Utah’s roads: In 2025, Utah experienced the lowest number of traffic deaths since 2019, and improved the state’s transportation safety index by 9.8%, just shy of the targeted increase of 10% by 2029.
- Accelerating Operation Gigawatt: Utah is accelerating its energy future by breaking ground on a nuclear test reactor, and launching a new nuclear hub in Brigham City that will feature a manufacturing plant, workforce training, and rural small modular reactor deployment. Utah’s energy sector continues to innovate and expand across a broad spectrum of generation, storage, and transmission technologies.
- Amplifying Utah’s spirit of service: The number of youth and young adults participating in service through Volunteer for Good and the One Utah Service Fellowship more than doubled, with 15,415 youth currently serving. This year, 21 high schools participated in the state’s Volunteer for Good Program, recording 89,286 service hours, and Fellows of the One Utah Service Fellowship have served more than 305,000 hours since the fellowship program began in August of 2024.
In addition to the one-year progress report, a new dashboard is live where Utahns can track quarterly updates for each objective in the strategic plan.
The full one-year progress report, the original “Built Here” Second Term Strategic Plan and the dashboard can be viewed online at governor.utah.gov.
