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Show Davis Legislators Ponder Session By TOM BLSSKLBKRG North County Kditor SALT LAKE CITY -- It may not have won many friends along the way, but the most important thing accomplished accom-plished by the legislators in a key Davis County representative's representa-tive's view was holding the budget to just over $2 billion. REP. ROBERT Garff, House Majority Leader, made that assessment as he reflected back on the 60-day session that saw many major changes in laws affecting criminal justice and moral issues. "A lot of people feel this particular session ses-sion concentrated on the criminal cri-minal justice and moral issues with such things as insanity defense, de-fense, child kidnapping, the missing children registry and the revamping of the criminal justice agency. We're building new prisons. "I personally feel the most important thing we did was to write the budget to just a little over $2 billion. The problem is, we were in a recession year, with no money to give salary increases. The fact is, most of our workforce is struggling with unemployment or reductions reduc-tions in work pay. "IT WAS the most austere budget we passed, considering the limes. Most of the state agencies are not exactly happy. hap-py. But no one, I think, cut a fat hog so I suspect a delicate balance was reached between the taxpayer on one side who can't afford new taxes and the state agencies on the other side who serve the public." The veteran legislator with six sessions behind him further assessing the past two months by saying, "There was a lot more philosophical unity than ever before. The Democrats were easy to work with and the Republican Senate and House were together. That was refreshing-no last-minute punches." HE NOTED the "most stir" caused during the session's last hour Thursday night came when the compromise was reached with the sales tax redistribution re-distribution and building bond proposals. "This was very carefully orchestrated by the leadership of both houses. The Senate moved to bond and the House moved to pay as you go." While state employees haven't ha-ven't been happy over the length of the session, he noted a compromise had been hammered ham-mered out on the retirement issue where some funds are being given for a salary increase in-crease and benefit package after af-ter all. "OUR DEMOCRACY works best under pressure. Many (bills) weren't struck until un-til the very last when you're forced to have a big group of that size, they have to make decisions as the time gets down to the crunch." He emphasized he doesn't share feelings of many quarters quar-ters that passage of a sever-ence sever-ence tax on oil or other minerals miner-als would've solved any problems. prob-lems. "It would help" to meet such needs as for education, Mr. Garff said, adding, "even if we triple the severence tax, that only yields about $27 million. mil-lion. That wouldn't even give a three percent salary increase. "I DON'T KNOW where everyone thinks that will answer all our problems. It won't be a panacea for educational educa-tional questions over the next five years. There has to be a broader restructuring. The legislature leg-islature and education will have to deal with it it's a two-way two-way street. "We'll have to find more money. We did find $20 million for growth, but we're just scratching the surface," he continued. "I told educators this was not the year for a tax increase, with so many out of work. In the future, if we come out of the recession, I promised prom-ised educators I would sponsor a tax increase for education. "EVEN WITH a tax increase in-crease and severence tax, that won't take care of everything we need. We'll all have to be very creative-there have to be a lot of changes. We just don't have the resources to do all that people expect. There will have to be more funding for education-a major overhaul in order to take care of it." Noting the anticipated population doubling within the next six years in schools, Mr. Garff said it would cost $1.8 billion to construct buildings "like we've had in the past-but past-but the state doesn't have that kind of money. And that doesn't even count teacher salaries and maintenance and operations-there's a tremendous tremen-dous crunch coming." REPR. Morris Hansen of Syracuse took a positive view of the session in a telephone interview. "I thought we did pretty well," then the former Davis School Board member turned his thoughts to education. educa-tion. "It would have been nice to have some for education. I thought we should've had a higher weighted pupil unit to allow for lane changes and increment in-crement pay (for teachers). I felt bad about that. I know there are going to be increased costs for utilities for the coming com-ing year. "I thought so far as the departments de-partments and regulations, it did go pretty well up to date. I thought we did well on the drinking drivers and for the justice and courts to process them. I felt very good. "I KNOW it would've been easy to put severence on but those people in the Uintah Basin have 30 percent unem-ployment-I don't think we need to kick them when down. Two years ago we wanted a severence on coal, now that's at 30 percent (unemployment)." |
