♪♪♪ male announcer: Funding for the Hinckley Report is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund.

Jason: Tonight on "The Hinckley Report," Utah's leaders debate how to handle more than a billion dollar surplus with an eye toward cutting taxes and investing in major projects, legislators weigh in on controversial topics that could have a big impact on education in Utah, and citizens react as the impact of the state's new covid policies take effect.

♪♪♪ CC BY ABERDEEN CAPTIONING 1-800-688-6621 WWW.ABERCAP.COM Jason: Good evening and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

Glad to have you with us, I'm Jason Perry, Director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Covering the week we have Lindsay Whitehurst, reporter with the associated press; Republican State Senator Daniel McCay; and Representative Brian King, minority leader in the Utah House of Representatives.

Thank you so much for being with us, second week of the legislative session is down, lots happening, but I want to talk about money first since that drives so much.

I mean, how after you wake up and say if I had a billion dollars, what would I do?

That's kind of your question today, Senator.

I want to start with you because you have a over a billion dollars in excess this year you'll be distributing.

Not all of it is ongoing, but some of it is, talk about what the priorities are with that money that's coming forward.

Daniel McCay: Yeah, thanks, you know there are a lot of priorities, obviously, and they all have to compete, right?

I think the number-one priority is the building at the University of Utah.

Jason: Perfect.

Daniel: And then after that--no really, when we're looking at it if you look at how much money we have, it's a big number, and if you look at the commitments we've already made or at least taken off of the table, we've made some pretty big commitments already, so we've already committed almost $350 million to our K through 12 public education system, which includes a 5% increase for the WPU, which is our, you know, spread-out shared number for education, and we've also committed to fully fund growth like we promised who would and we have for the last 12 years.

I can tell you, though, as the session moves forward, they're trying to solve a lot of big rocks, and that's where the next priority comes into once we funded education and we looked at some of the other employee needs--because as everybody has seen, employee salaries have increased with inflation as well, and so we're looking at employee salaries and trying to solve those problems across the board, and I think once we've done all those things, leadership feels like there's probably time or at least room for a moderate tax cut.

Jason: Representative, I want to talk about the tax cut, but maybe talk about a couple of those priorities, 'cause they're things you've worked on for a long time as well.

It's not common to have issues like that resolved so far ahead of time, compensation for state employees and sort of a number of workout for public ed.

Brian King: Right, I think one of the things people need to understand is we have additional money to do some things that have sort of been down lower on the list for years because--in large part because of federal funding from the ARPA program and others.

We now have the ability to fund such things as mental health programs, we can use some of that money for affordable housing and homelessness issues, and we can address such things as the Great Salt Lake.

I was really happy to hear Governor Cox talking about our dire needs in connection with Great Salt Lake.

Those are all things that Democrats support the governor on.

I think there's also a fair amount of support within the Republican Caucuses in the House and the Senate for doing those things too.

We are in good health budget-wise largely because of resources available from the federal government arising out of the pandemic.

Jason: Lindsay, talk about a couple of these infrastructure projects, because you're right, both sides of the aisle, everything from water, the Great Salt Lake, dealing with our bridges, our roads, talk about what you're hearing behind the scenes when it comes to those kinds of projects, 'cause there are a bunch of them on the list.

Lindsay Whitehurst: Well, one piece I've been following closely is our secondary water metering, which maybe doesn't sound as exciting to the general public, right?

But especially in the context of the Great Salt Lake, that's really a project that could potentially have impacts going forward.

And there's a chunk of money, $200 million, that I think what's been discussed, but we'll see how it all plays out.

But in terms of taking those homes do use secondary water outdoors and actually just metering it, just measuring what water goes onto those lawns and is used in those homes and businesses, that could be something that is a big step towards conservation that--and a lot of those homes that use that secondary water are on that Great Salt Lake watershed, so that's one of the pieces in the puzzle when it comes to saving the Great Salt Lake, and what is the action we're going to take to make sure this resource stays as healthy as it can for the future of all of us really Jason: Representative, what do you think about that-- that approach?

Because it is about conver-- conversation.

Brian: Right, right.

Jason: Conservation.

Brian: It's an amazing thing to see the extent to which just measuring, just letting people know, hey, we're measuring your water use impacts in a significant way the amount of water people use.

The other thing that impacts what water we use is how we price it, and Utah has traditionally for many, many years had a flat pricing structure for our water use in a way that is at odds with our other western states, desert states like us, Nevada, Arizona, California, They all have incremental pricing of water that the more you use, the more quickly and significantly the water prices rise, not true in Utah, so we need to adjust water pricing to encourage the kind of conservation that we're talking about here.

Jason: Interesting point, Senator?

Daniel: I think it's super-important to make that transition, by the way, from the flat pricing where people get to use whatever they want, right?

To shifting more towards a metered use, you know, perspective.

People say, well, you know that doesn't feel like a Conservative thing, and I don't know why.

People should be paying.

You know, what they're using and how much is available should directly affect the price, that is the market 101, and I think it's time for it to apply to water.

Jason: I think we're gonna see that this session.

So talk for a second about this, Senator, because you're running the bill, a lot of talk about income tax reduction.

Give us the essence of what that bill is doing and the potential impact.

Daniel: So, we're talking about, you know, as we've put all the big rocks into the budget, kind of the next part is we're looking at revenue, is can we afford income tax cut?

And right now we've set aside about $160 million already for an income tax cut, and basically in Utah it's basically taking the rate down for income tax.

It will affect both individual and corporate income tax rates, and so both those will come down.

The other part that I think are nuanced that are very interesting that people ought to, you know, keep their eye on is last year we made accommodations to, like, cut back on how much we're taxing social security when social security is the only form of income, and so we measured into that.

We're going to see an additional commitment to that this year.

We're looking at--right now I think the number's around 15 million.

The other part that we're looking at is for the first time in Utah, a couple years ago we passed a bill that required employers to submit W-2s, so all employee forms, they were able to submit those electronically.

So by submitting those electronically, we've significantly cut back the incidents of fraud for reporting for W-2 income, and what that's really helped us with is now we're in a situation where we can take that W-2 of already verified information, and we can apply it to what's called an earned income tax credit, so that a person who is working can qualify for credit against their tax's state level so that they're getting it, you know, a targeted income tax cut at that lower level, and I think when you look at that applying to the--to our social security and then you take that and apply it to our lower or most needy families, and then you look at the broader income tax rate, we're looking at about a $200 million package.

Jason: The Democrats, where are you on this income tax?

'Cause there are a couple other proposals you personally were involved in from your side of the aisle.

Brian: Two points on income tax cuts, people need to remember and realize when we're talking about income tax, we're talking about money being taken off the table for public education, higher education, children-- programs addressing children's needs, and programs addressing needs of individuals with disabilities.

So let's be clear about what we're doing here.

We're 49th in the country in terms of per pupil spending, money per pupil is not the end all and be all in terms of the quality of education, we all know that, but we also know that we've got a long way to go to bring up ourselves to a level that I think most people would feel is acceptable, so we're wary of income tax cuts at all, number one, but number two we believe that income tax cuts should be directed toward those who need them the most, and I'm encouraged actually to see Republicans from the governor over to my legislative colleagues coming around ideas that we have Democrat--as Democrats promoted for years, such as earned income tax credit.

Senator McCay talks about an income tax, it's a great idea.

I've run earned income tax credit bills two or three times in my time at the legislature, and Democrats have supported them because they're aimed at the people who need them the most.

Similarly, when we're talking about providing relief--tax relief for individuals on foods tax, we'd like to cut the sales tax on food completely.

I think that's the most effective way of addressing and helping people who are making troub--having trouble making ends meet, literally putting food on the table.

I like that better than the governor's grocery tax credit idea, because it's a more effective and direct way of addressing the needs of people who are struggling.

We just want to see any income tax or any tax cuts at all directed toward people who need them the most as opposed to just cutting income tax rates from 4.95 to 4.85.

Daniel: How long can we talk about taxes before people want to throw us off--or change the channel?

Jason: I guess we'll see.

Lindsay, maybe you could address that very question, 'cause I know you're connected to the community so well.

How is this being received, these conversations, when you have a surplus of funds and some of them are a little more targeted, we see some of the big priorities already funded?

How is this being received of the people you are interviewing?

What do they want?

Lindsay: I think, you know, it's that time of year where people are starting to get their W-2s in the mail, they're starting to think about taxes, and nobody enjoys it, right?

And it's something that is I think especially complicated this year, so I do think that getting too much into the details can start to turn some folks off, right?

But I do--I also think that people are looking at inflation, they're looking at prices for essentials being higher, end when they can feel some kind of relief.

I think that's important for a lot of folks, you know?

And I think that for both lower-income people and more middle-income people, that's something that's very much on their mind.

So as much as those--that relief can be connected with some of the other pinches that people are seeing on their household budget, I think that ends up being important in people's minds.

Daniel: Lindsay makes a great point, right?

The nice thing about this whole--the whole package is there's really going to be something in it for everyone, and if, you know, interestingly, I'm getting feedback from people who say it's just not enough.

You have a billion dollars of additional income, and so it's just not enough, can you do more?

And you know, I totally understand that feeling.

If you look at where we've been at as a state, I can see our income numbers continually grow, we've incentivized jobs here in the state of Utah consistently over the last 20 years, and so yeah, we're seeing a lot of economic job growth and that kind of thing, so we're seeing upward pressure on wages finally in Utah.

One of the things that makes it difficult is we also live in a Republican state, and if you raise--or if you decrease taxes so much that in two years you have to come back and raise taxes, that gets pretty tough.

That's a tough conversation.

Brian's been there, and now Brian would love to raise taxes every day, and that's a totally different story for both of us.

Brian: I don't have to put up with that.

No, I mean, the reality is there's--people sometimes don't realize the extent to which government services and government programs really are effective at addressing the needs of individuals in their day-to-day lives, whether it's educating our children, or whether it's cleaning up our air, whether it's addressing the needs of Great Salt Lake, those are things that we rely on our government to do.

And I know we tease each other, Senator McCay and I have a great relationship, and I say you just hate government, why do you want to be an elected official at all?

But the reality is there's a balance that you have to strike here in terms of wise use of taxpayer money while at the same time not neglecting things that are essential.

Jason: Let's get into a couple of those items were government is getting involved in a couple of these other things in the community.

And we're gonna start with you Senator, 'cause we've--since our last program masks are no longer--those mandates are no longer in effect.

You're the one that ran that joint resolution on the Senate side, talk about that for just a moment, 'cause I want to get through the impacts throughout the state because that has passed.

Daniel: You know, no--I have been in the legislature for-- this is my 11th legislative session, and in those 11 years I don't know that I've received more email on both sides of an issue than I have on masks, and that is-- I went back and looked at my email since the beginning of the pandemic to today, no other item eclipses the input and the outreach that I've had on masks.

It is amazing to see people debating how much government they want and where they want to draw the line and whether or not a mandate's appropriate, whether you know, where can the government tell you what to do in a health emergency, and how do you balance that, right?

And I think what everybody decided in the beginning is they were kind of willing to go along with it as, you know, as a trial thing to see if we could like tamper things down.

And what we saw throughout the world actually was that mask mandates in different places or different remedial health measures that were taken, there really wasn't a difference in spread.

It just really changed, you know, the spikes were just in different locations depending on whether or not you're a gateway state in the United States, you know, Florida, New York, California, those states saw the spikes the first because they're a gateway state for the rest of the country, okay?

And then you look, you know, follow the spikes as they trend through, but the one thing that was clear is that masks from a trend line perspective didn't really negatively or positively kinda move the needle on infections or that kind of thing, and I think that's where you got to where people said, well, when this next mask mandate came out, they said uh-uh, we're not doin' it.

And I say they, it's--my part of the valley, I think I'm currently the most popular like political figure for undoing the mask mandate.

If I was living in Brian's area, I'm pretty sure I would be drawn and quartered somewhere near State Street, right?

And that's--that would be the end, and so it's really interesting to see that divergence, and I'm perfectly happy to put that mask conversation in a personal decision, personal responsibility, and leave it there and let people make that decision for this pandemic.

Brian: What the Republicans are not perfectly happy doing, and this is the thing that gave us the grievance, Jason, is they're not perfectly happy letting the local authorities, public health authorities, school districts, cities, and counties come up with their own determination about how to approach it, and that's what gave us great heartburn.

We're listening to public health experts, those mayors, whether it's Mayor Mendenhall or Mayor Wilson in Salt Lake County, or the Park City Mayor, the county council in Summit County, they're the ones who were listening to their public health authorities and getting word about what's best for their areas, and we've always believed in local control until we want to control the locals.

We did it on this very issue last year when we said we're gonna leave it up to the locals as Senator McCay says.

We just didn't feel as Democrats that there was justification to come up to the legislature and cut off--for a relatively short timeframe when the mask mandate was in place--override that local authority and the public health experts who are advising those local mayors.

Daniel: I don't disagree, actually, with Brian, and I wanna, you know, I want to--my hat's off to him 'cause it's great to hear Democrats talk about local control.

I'm looking forward to the next public lands debate.

The big issue that I, you know, that I'm--I constantly think we have to balance is the most local decision is the living room, right?

Where families sit together, they make decisions, and I think trying to make decisions-- anytime you get outside of that living room to make decisions and government's making the decision for the living room, it just gets really messy, and that's what we saw with the masks.

I love our local officials.

I think Mayor Wilson, Mayor Jenny Wilson did the best that she could given the circumstances that she had, and following health professionals is frequently a great idea.

I will just say as people were balancing the utility of the mask versus the other decisions they have to make in their life, they weren't willing to do it, and that's--that is why I think when it--from a state perspective, when we're trying to balance that, that's the question we're trying to answer.

Jason: Lindsay, in your conversations with elected officials, how are they balancing this?

How well are they doing in the public eye but also internally?

Because even right here we saw the question came down to a little bit of there's the policy, but it's also the people they represent and where they are living.

Lindsay: Masks are incredibly political, right?

As Senator McCay referred to it, and you really do--change just going from one town to the next along the Wasatch Front, which is a little bit of a mind bender, right?

That the differences that you can see.

And I think one other piece of this that some of the Salt Lake County leaders mentioned, including a couple of Republicans who felt like this mask mandate was the best thing for their community was the getting out of these high-quality masks, the KN-95, things like this, to make sure that, you know, the people who need and want to wear them have already--quality masks that are more effective in this omicron period, and that's another piece to all of this is that accessibility part of it, that--and for testing and things like that, too, so I think that's something else that's on people's mind is how do we get the right tools into the hands of people that need them?

Brian: One thing I'd say in connection with that, Jason, is--that Lindsay touched on is I don't agree with this idea that I've heard some of my colleagues talk about that masks don't matter, they don't make a difference, they don't curb or slow the spread, that's not something public health experts and the best evidence indicates.

In fact, omicron especially being it's so highly transmissible does create a challenge for all of us, but it is absolutely true that high-quality masks worn consistently and worn effectively have a significant effect on reducing the spread.

And you can see that in red states versus blue states in terms of death rates per capita, transmission in new infections per capita, it does make a difference to mask up.

Daniel: You want to know what makes a real difference in public health?

People eating better, exercising, mental health and a healthy situation, right?

Those are things that really improve public health, and yet we haven't yet turned those decisions over to our our medical professionals, right?

And that's to me the hard part, honestly, in all of this debate.

I don't want to disagree with Brian at all about whether or not experts have it.

In fact, I don't even want to have the debate anymore.

What I want is for medical recommendations and for me to be able to make those decisions.

There's nothin' wrong honestly with having a different opinion.

The only thing wrong is when government steps in and tells you you have to do it a certain way.

Jason: Let's stay on that theme for just a moment, and particularly this idea you had there about these decisions in the living room, 'cause there's one bill that we've been talking about in education this week and one to come next week I feel like we should talk about on the show a little bit too.

One, let's talk about Senator Lincoln Fillmore's bill.

This is Senate Bill 114 about school curriculum.

Essentially, this will be like a new process for materials that are taught to our children.

A district would have to post those materials, textbooks, the videos, things like that for parents to review, there's.

A 30-day period to review those materials and then a public hearing and a vote on those materials.

I would love to get your perspectives from all three of you about that, because that is, you know, the first time we've seen a little bit like that where the parents are, you know, have to do something and also curious what the differences between instructional materials, which what you have to do and supplemental materials.

You wanna start first, Senator?

Daniel: Sure, you know, the hard part that you know we're constantly trying to deal with is what's fact and what's fiction about educational materials, right?

And people feel like, hey, I don't know what's going on in the classroom, right?

And you saw, you know, for the first time during the Zoom classroom days of the early pandemic, you had parents that were like overhearing stuff and they were concerned about things they were hearing, right?

Whether they had the most information or whether they, you know, could follow the water all the way to the row on the academic thought, they were concerned, right?

And so you had demands for transparency, and I think that bill is really an effort to provide transparency.

I think this is just me, when my kids bring stuff home, that-- they bring the syllabus home, I'm able to see the reading materials most the time, so some of that transparency already exists in my kids' classroom, but maybe there are other places where it doesn't exist, and maybe, you know, I don't know if putting it out on the website's really the thing.

I'm not sure what the right mechanism is, but making sure that parents have a syllabus so they can at least see what's going on in the classroom.

Jason: Lindsay, talk about the transparency idea, which is I think what Senator Fillmore is saying it's about also.

Lindsay: Of course, we've seen a lot of big debates about education in recent months and recent years, right?

And I think that the balance as this bill gets debated will end up being if parents are an important piece to the puzzle.

As a parent, I like to think I'm an important piece of my kid's education, but also we've got to make sure that by doing that it's not adding an extra layer of--on our teachers who have just done so much this year.

This is what some of the debate has been about, right?

Is these teachers over the last couple of years have been just absolute superheroes, right?

And under incredibly difficult conditions, and I think that's gonna be the balance, is how do we make sure parents have a piece in their kid's education, and how do we make sure that teachers who are such great pieces, too, how do we make sure they can do their jobs the best, and how do we make sure we can give them the best possible environment to really give our kids all of the things that they're so skilled and incredible at.

That's going to be the real debate, I think, coming up.

Jason: Representative, these teachers have not been as supportive.

Brian: No, no, I think they feel--and this has got a long history to it, Jason, in terms of public education professionals feeling that they're being micro-managed by the legislature, that there's a lot of backseat driving on the details of how they do their work.

They are professionals, they're highly trained, they're doing incredibly difficult work, we don't pay them enough for a variety of reasons.

If McCay and I were in a classroom, we'd last about 10 minutes before we'd run out screaming.

Daniel: I'm a substitute teacher, Brian, and I have a teaching degree, so I got more than 10 minutes in me.

Brian: So, I think that they rightly feel that there are times when we are far too quick in the legislature to second guess what they do and that we need to recognize that sometimes the best thing to do is--I'm all for transparency.

I think it's a great idea, but I don't know that we are as careful enough to safeguard and protect and honor what our professional--our teaching professionals are trying to do and recognizing that they're doing the best job that can.

I'm all for transparency, what I'm not in favor of is the legislature stepping in to say this is what you will or will not teach or making it--so tightly reining them in that what we're actually doing is allowing families to go in and say to teachers if you don't teach this, we're going to raise a fuss and create problems for you in terms of your morale and your ability to do your job as a professional.

Daniel: Education is probably the place that government touches families the most, right?

Probably touches the most individually, right?

Maybe the roads, I guess, you know, but you aren't talking to a government official, the roads are open, they're transparent, you know the lanes most the time, I know, you know?

But you know, every day the government is involved in education, and every day those kids are in the classroom.

The DMV is once a year, you know, and people hate the DMV.

Can you imagine if, you know, they felt the same way about education.

You know, it's really great, though I think some modicum of transparency and making sure parents are involved isn't going to hurt anything.

I think they'll find that right balance before this session's over.

Jason: Really quickly, just a preview for this coming week.

Maybe Lindsay, you've heard this too?

I understand we may have a voucher bill coming back maybe this next week, also backpack funding.

Anyone want to verify this one?

Brian: Well, what you've come up with is the form of vouchers by another name, and that's what the backpack funding is.

I mean, there's a desire to come up with something that is more politically palatable with the people of the state of Utah but accomplishes the same things as vouchers tried to accomplish over a decade ago and went down in flames on.

Daniel: The best answer to what is taught in the classroom and what's not taught in the classroom and transparency and all this stuff is getting people the financial ability to make a decision about where they go to school and how their kids are educated.

I think it's best.

Jason: So these are also the living room decisions?

Daniel: Living room decision.

Jason: Interesting.

This is gonna have to be the the last comment on this today.

We'll follow this particular bill very closely over this next week when we're coming-- Anything else Representative King we need to watch this week in our last 20 seconds?

Brian: No, I mean, we're constantly doing a wide range of stuff.

I'd encourage people to get online and watch what we do and let us know what you think.

Jason: Yeah, I've been amazed at the access this year, particularly of people online in every single meeting we've been having.

Thank you very much for your comments today, very interesting conversations that have a big impact on all of us, so thank you very much.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

The show is also available as a podcast on PBSUtah.Org/HinckleyReport or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you for being with us, we'll see you next week.

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