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Show Retirement Change Most Significant Action of 1972 Legislative Session Perhaps the most significant signifi-cant fiscal action taken by the recently adjourned budget bud-get session was the full funding fund-ing of retirement costs for stale and local employees. This was the conclusion rea ched by Utah Foundation, the private research organization, ,in their analysis of the 1972 budget session. Under the present public employee retirement law, the employer and employee each contribute iV2 per cent of salary sa-lary costs to the state retirement retire-ment fund. Under the new law passed by the 1972 budget bud-get session, the employing unit will assume the employee's employ-ee's 4'2 per cent share, resulting re-sulting in a total cost of 9 per cent to the State. This total contribution will b; raised to 9Vs per cent in 1973 and finally to 10 per cent in 1975. The Foundation notes that this new obligation will add approximately $10.6 million to state expenditures, a sum equal to nearly a third of thy total estimated increase in state general purpose spending spend-ing for all purposes next year. Recipients of this new fringe benefit will include most state employees and local lo-cal school employees. The benefit also may be extended to other local government employees if the action is approved ap-proved by their local employing em-ploying unit. According to the Foundation, Founda-tion, total state general pur- pose spending is expected to ; increase by $32.5 million next year as a result of the 1972 budget session actions. In ad-' ad-' dition, increased spending from restricted revenue sources sour-ces (Federal aid, institutional fees, etc.) will add another $10.2 million to the total. Of the $32.5 million estimated esti-mated increase in state general gen-eral purpose spending for 1972-1973, approxicately 61 per cent will go lor education, educa-tion, 15 per cent for social services, 17 per cent for highways, high-ways, and 7 per cent for ali other state purposes Foundation analysts observe that this was Utah's second experience with a budget session. ses-sion. At both the 1970 and the 1972 budget sessions numerous numer-ous nonbudgetary issues were presented for consideration. This year more bills were introduced but fewer gained legislative acceptance than jn 1970. Of the 24 bills finally enacted by the 1972 budget session, all but eight were classified as nonbudgetary, requiring a two-thirds favorable favor-able vote in each house for consideration. The study notes that important im-portant new impetus to the state building program is provided pro-vided by legislation which transfers all general fund surpluses at the end of the current (1971-72) fiscal year to the state building board. Although the building priority schedule contemplates 2 transfer of about $6.6 million for building purposes, it is possible that the ending general gen-eral fund surplus could exceed ex-ceed this amount by $2-$3 million. While the totals in the legislative leg-islative program enacted do not differ appreciably from the budget plan recommended recommend-ed by the Governor, there were some differences fir specifics. One area where the Legislature did part from the Governor's recommendation was in turning down a proposal pro-posal for a new $14 million bond issue to, finance an expanded ex-panded program for recreation recrea-tion development. According to legislative estimates, es-timates, total cost of local school operations during 1972-. 1972-. 73 will be $131.9 million, the same sum recommended in the Governor's budget. The Foundation study points out that the budget proposal differed dif-fered from the one finally adopted, ad-opted, however, in that it provided pro-vided for greater state support sup-port of the basic school program pro-gram but did not recommend full state funding of the retirement re-tirement program for school employees. Another fact noted in the Foundation analysis was that legislative projection of school costs for 1972-73 were based on estimates that were lower than the ones used in the Governor's budget. If the legislative le-gislative cost projection had been made on the same basis as the one used in the budget, the program could be expected expect-ed to cost about $2.2 mfllion more than the amount indicated indi-cated by the Legislature. In addition, the Legislature raised rais-ed the revenue estimates shown in the budget by $2.5 million. |