Governor: Legislature's "Longitudinal" Cuts Would Harm Critical Programs

Dec 19, 2008 by Jeff Robinson

Listen to Politics Up Close Friday Morning at 11

(KCPW News) Governor Jon Huntsman says he'd be glad to call a second special session of the Utah Legislature if lawmakers were prepared to strategically evaluate how additional budget cuts for this fiscal year would impact programs that could be significantly harmed. But from what he's been told, legislators would be taking a much different course.

"It is sort of the longitudinal haircut of 7 or 8 percent, without any thought given to programs and how they would be affected, that I don't think represents good public policy for the people of this state," he said.

In a KCPW interview, Huntsman said there's no question that every agency will have to take a cut, but he's concerned that programs in education and human services would be irreparably harmed with such large cuts across the board.

Governor Huntsman added that in the general legislative session beginning next month, any cuts made by lawmakers would go through much more scrutiny.

"What you're forced to do during the legislative session is to convene the various subcommittees that would then evaluate very carefully what these cuts would mean to real people in human services, higher education, public education, and so we all understand through these open hearings what a cut of 3, 5, 7, or 15 percent would mean," said Huntsman.

The legislative general session begins January 26th. Governor Huntsman will be on today's edition of Politics Up Close to speak in-depth about the issue at 11 a.m.

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