(calm music) - [Narrator] PBS Utah presents "The Governor's Monthly News Conference", an exchange between Utah reporters and Governor Spencer Cox.

(calm music) - Good morning ladies and gentlemen, it's great to be with you again, it's great to see all of you, I know it's been a very busy month for those of you, especially those of you who are covering the legislature.

Now we usually start these press briefings with a COVID update, I'm going to forgo that today and we'll let you know that we will be having a COVID press conference tomorrow morning with our public health officials to give an update on where we are with the virus and the pandemic and where we go from here.

So we hope you'll attend, we hope you'll pay attention to that discussion tomorrow morning.

I do want to begin though by just thanking members of the legislature who have been meeting.

We're in the middle of the 45-day session, actually, we're towards the end of the 45-day session thankfully, we have about two weeks to go, I know how challenging it is for legislators and their families, it's been a great session so far, I'm assuming you have a few questions to ask about the session and I'll be happy to answer those and we might as well jump right in so I'll open the floor for questions.

- Governor, at this point, the bill to block proof of vaccination has made it out of committee, you yourself have said that private businesses have a right to require this if they want to, so is this bill cruising for a veto?

Should it get through the legislature to your desk?

- Thanks Ben, so we will be talking a lot more about COVID tomorrow as I mentioned but as we see, case counts are dramatically dropping, hospitalizations are dramatically dropping, Omicron has been the most predictable variant of all the variants, it happens the same way in every state, in every country, it goes up quickly and it comes down quickly just like we were expecting.

We also see that we have done very well with vaccinations, there are still lots of people that we need to get vaccinated but Utah is in a great space and we're going to be in an even better space in the next week or two.

And I'm ready to, I think most Americans as certainly most Utahns are ready to move on from all of this debate and discussion that has been so divisive around the variant.

I'm ready to be done with all COVID bills.

We have passed many COVID bills in the past that have dealt with some of these very controversial issues, I feel like we're in a very good place in the state, I do think it's time for businesses to stop requiring vaccinations to get in.

I was very pleased to see the Utah Jazz announce this past week that after, I think February 25th, they will no longer be requiring vaccinations to get into the games.

I would encourage all businesses to do that, I think that's where we need to be.

It's concerning because you could actually have COVID and still get into these places because you had been vaccinated and certainly with Omicron, we saw many breakthrough cases.

And so, no longer is being vaccinated equivalent to not having COVID or not being able to spread COVID and so I don't think they make sense in that way but I'm certainly ready to be done with all of these bills.

Again, one of the ways that the legislature can signal to Utahns that we're moving on from the pandemic phase of the virus is to not run any more bills around COVID and so we're watching this one closely, we'll see where it goes, I hate mandates, I don't like government mandating that people get vaccinated, that's why we've sued the Biden administration successfully to prevent that from happening, I don't think we should be mandating, telling businesses and people what they need to do with regards to this epidemic.

And if I'm being consistent, and I've said this before, that also means we shouldn't mandate businesses with their requirements.

We already have an exception for employees.

Every employee in this state already, we passed a law that I signed, they have the ability to opt out of any vaccine requirements.

So we're really talking about businesses doing business and customers, I think the market will take care of that and I suspect that over the next few weeks we'll see that the few remaining vaccine requirements go away from businesses.

- Governor, last year you were opposed to the transgender athlete bill, yesterday you signaled that you have some optimism, that you could get to a place where you might support it, what has to change in order for you to sign the bill?

- So we're looking at this bill very closely and I want to thank both sides of this issue.

You'll remember when I signaled my opposition to it last year, that was a complete ban that we were talking about and I said there has to be a better way and I encouraged both sides to come together and that's exactly what has happened and both sides are saying that.

If you look to Equality Utah and Troy Williams, he's talked about the sponsor of the bill, representative Birkeland, how hard she has worked over the past year, I give her enormous credit in bringing people together to try to find a solution.

They've also both said that they're very close, that this bill is close, it doesn't give everyone one what they want, which probably means it's a good step in the right direction.

We don't have support from both sides yet but they're signaling that they're close, if there's maybe a couple changes that can be made.

I don't wanna poison that discussion in any way with anything I say here today, except to say that my team is also involved in those discussions and I think we're close, I think we'll get a much better bill, I'm hopeful that we will get something where both Equality Utah and Representative Birkeland can come together and say, "Hey, we like this, it's not perfect but it's better," it will protect women's sports which is really important but also allow many if not all of our students, and by the way there's very, very few if any right now that are participating in sports but we'll allow a path for that to happen.

So this is a very different bill, this is unlike anything that has been passed or attempted anywhere in the country and so I'm anxious and hopeful that we can get this issue off the table.

Again, it's a very, very small issue, it gets blown outta proportion because you'll see an Olympic athlete or a college athlete somewhere who is dominating their sport, that's certainly not happened here in the state of Utah but we're gonna try to find a path forward.

- So the two sides, Representative Birkeland and Equality Utah must agree, for you to support the bill.

- No, that's not what I said.

I'm hopeful that we can get to an agreement but I will say we're much closer than we were before, we'll what comes out of this, I'm keeping my mind open and I know they are as well.

- But as this bill is written right now, would you sign it?

- It hasn't passed yet, it's close, that's all I can say right now is that it's close and I'm hopeful we can get it across the finish line.

- Republican governors in at least 10 states have signed bills to ban transgender athletes from girls' sports, are those governors wrong?

- So I mentioned this before, when we talked about it last year and that is, that when I talked to our transgender students in the state and I've encouraged our legislators to do as much, and again, Representative Birkeland has done this and she deserves enormous credit for having these conversations, these very difficult conversations, and what I said is I'm more worried about their mental health, I'm more worried about the safety of these students right now, they're not in our state dominating sports, that's not an issue that we need to deal with and so I rejected that last year, I do think there has to be a better way, I think we're close to that better way here and if we're able to find something that works better and it helps here and it's a win for both sides, then I would encourage those governors to consider something like that.

- Governor, your thoughts on the flyover over the Great Salt Lake, why do that with lawmakers?

What came of that?

- Sure, yeah, so I've had multiple conversations with lawmakers who did the flyover.

They were able to go and spend some time, we took some a couple days ago and then this morning, the National Guard, we wanna be very clear because for some reason this has gotten out there that this is costing enormous amounts of money.

These are required training hours for the National Guard so these are flights they would have to do anyway and it makes sense to use those hours to help our legislators see the scope of the problem.

I liken it to the first time I saw Delicate Arch or the first time I saw the Grand Canyon, I'd seen pictures of it my whole life and you can say you know what Delicate Arch looks like but when you see it the first time, it's breathtaking, it's overwhelming, it's incredible, there is no substitute to seeing it in-person, and even those who are the biggest advocates for the Great Salt Lake were shocked when they got up there and saw that bird's-eye view of how dry it really is and how small the lake has gotten.

No picture, no drone footage can do that, what they were able to see with their own eyes, and we've heard back from people who thought this was somebody else's issue, who have said, "Wow, I had no idea, we need to do more, and I'm on the team."

And so, the way that it galvanized people, the way that it unified people, I think was critically important and I applaud the speaker and the president for making that happen, going early in the morning before their committee meetings start and giving them an opportunity to see firsthand what's happening out there.

- The speaker's bill was made public yesterday, 40 million alone just for getting water to the Great Salt Lake as well as watershed and habitat restoration.

You have budgeted 50 million overall, is this enough?

- Well, it's a start, and the speaker would tell you it's not enough, he will tell you it's a start as well but it's an important start and so I think he said, if I remember correctly that he expects that there will be bills every session going forward on the Great Salt Lake and I anticipate that as well.

We'll be proposing some of those, we'll be working with legislators on others and so it's a great start and that's what we're doing, is to help, again, help to galvanize public opinion on this, help people understand why it's important, that takes time but the steps we're taking now are the critical steps and really laying the framework so that we can do more of this in the future.

What that bill does, it's not just the 40 million that's important, it sets up a up a framework that allows additional dollars from nonprofits and private organizations to couple with the state dollars and to help get water rights that will allow additional flow to come into the Great Salt Lake.

So this is very exciting and I think again, combining the private sector and the nonprofit sector with the public sector makes our dollars go a lot further.

So it's not just 40 million, this will lead to hopefully hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to this cause.

- Governor, there is a provision though in this bill and I'm just quoting right from the language, that "You shall use no less than 25% of the grant money to protect and restore wetlands and habitats and the Great Salt Lake surrounding ecosystem to benefit the hydrology of the Great Salt Lake."

25% doesn't seem like very much, so why are you comfortable with this language?

- Sure, yeah, I am comfortable with that because again, it does more than that.

So this is about improving the wetlands, other of that will go to actually buying the water rights that just come directly into the lake.

So it's a huge start, it's something honestly a year ago I didn't know if we'd be able to get done, so to know that we have the speaker running this bill, that's a really good sign for us.

The speaker doesn't run a lot of bills that fail and so I'm excited about the direction we're headed.

- What about the investments that this new entity would be able to make?

So it sounds to me, just reading the bill, it sounds to me like this entity will be able to invest the money, and some of that may be state money, to realize some sort of return that would be put back into this process, you're good with that?

- Yes, so what will happen is, water rights will be purchased and then that water will be dedicated to the Great Salt Lake.

So water rights now are purchased to use in lots of different ways, right?

Used in homes, used in developments, used in businesses, used in agriculture, but these particular water rights will then be dedicated directly to the Great Salt Lake so they won't be used for anything except to replenish the Great Salt Lake and improve flows.

Now there are other bills out there that we're working on as well, this bill just came out yesterday but we're very excited about this concept.

It's a concept that's been around for a while but we've never used state money for this type of idea and I'm very pleased that it's getting so much support.

- Does that not open the door to other entities than investing state money?

I mean my impression is that that could be done in a myriad of different ways so is that problematic?

- No, it's not problematic, again it's a really good thing and maybe I'm misunderstanding the question but we're gonna move on to some other questions, it's not problematic at all, if we can invest state dollars in saving the Great Salt Lake, I'm gonna do that, I think I've been pretty clear about that and I don't see a problem with it at all.

- So how do you feel about islands on Utah lake now?

- Well, that's a whole other issue.

Certainly there are some proposals around that, there's a lot of concern that's coming, we're watching that process very closely.

We do need to do work on Utah Lake, there's no question.

Utah Lake is a disaster right now.

It's our most underutilized asset, it's our most underutilized resource, and in every year we have major issues with Utah Lake, there has to be dredging and it's incredibly expensive and so the question is, how are we going to pay for saving Utah Lake and making that happen?

This is a very novel idea but again, there's a lot of pushback on that, a lot of environmental concerns, so we will look at those closely before any decisions are made but everyone also agrees that something has to be done with Utah Lake, the controversy is over what and how to pay for it.

- Governor, we've been asking a lot about certain bills but for you this session, what needs to be voted on?

- Oh, wow, great question.

So there are several things that are important.

So water bills as I've stated for several months now, there's a suite of bills that are going through and they're in various stages of the process, they've all been voted on successfully in committees, in the house, in the Senate, we just need those to move through, these are conservation issues that are important, Representative Spendlove is running some of those.

We have some education bills that we're very passionate about.

Senator Ann Millner has been running bills around an initiative, a third grade literacy and reading initiative that is very critical to our state, the optional all-day kindergarten as well, something that we're very excited about, giving parents that option, not mandatory but optional and being able to fund that and pay for it, so those are bill that we're working on.

And then there's work going on around the price of housing in our state, in the supply of housing in our state and those negotiations are still occurring but we really wanna get those bills across the finish line.

- Just double-checking, so conservation, education, house supplies, you mean those are the three biggest issue that need to be tackled this year.

- I do, yes, correct.

- Governor the UEA also mentioned those bills as their priorities but president Heidi Matthews said that there's so much distraction on nonsense, that they're not able to work on those, are you worried at all about the prioritization of the legislature?

- Sure, I wish they would let me prioritize the legislative bills that are out there but that's not how it works and, you know, it's called sausage making for a reason, it's very messy.

Every legislator has has a right and an opportunity, they feel their bill is important, they have a group of constituents that feel their bills are important and so the messy stuff is part of the process too but I always ask people to judge the legislative session not by what is proposed or what is debated but what ultimately ends up passing and is signed into law and so, yeah, there are some messy ones out there, I mean, you specifically mentioned teachers and there are some bills out there that are controversial and I just wanna say to our teachers and the things they're worried about, there are some good ones here, as you mentioned, that they're very supportive of, some that they're not supportive of.

I wanna make sure that we are taking care of our teachers.

We're very proud of the fact that Utah was one of the first states to return to in-person learning.

We now realize, I think we realized it earlier than many other states how critical that is, now we have Democratic governors who sound like Republican governors, who are demanding that kids have in-person education and we did that here, one of the first states, we don't have the same education loss and gaps that other states have because we opened schools.

And sometimes as politicians we kinda pat ourselves on the back for that, that we made this happen, we did not make that happen, teachers made that happen, teachers were the ones that bore the brunt of making our schools were open, teachers were the ones who allowed for in-person learning to happen, teachers are the ones that prevented that gap, that learning gap that we're seeing in other states from happening here although there's certainly some of that here, and teachers, like many other professionals right now, are not feeling great.

They're struggling, it's been a long two years, it's been a difficult two years.

We had a teacher shortage before the pandemic.

I seriously worry, I hear so many teachers saying, "You know what, I'm tired, I've had it, I wanna move on to something else" and so that concerns me and so, there are lots of bills out there that seem to be kinda pummeling or piling on with our teachers right now and I just hope the legislature will be very careful and very cautious in the way they message those bills as they're looking for compromises or ways to move those bills forward, that they will do so in a way that is respectful of our teachers and that we're doing our very best to take care of our teachers and make sure they're okay.

- What are your thoughts about the voucher bill, the hope scholarship bill then?

- Yeah, so a good point.

So the question is about the voucher bill, the hope scholarship bill.

I am an advocate for choice, I'm a huge believer in choice and I think that parents should be able to use taxpayer money in other ways.

We have an incredible charter system of schools here in our state, we have more choice than we've ever had before and I think that's good, I think that's positive, and at some point I will be absolutely willing to support vouchers but that point is not now because we are underfunding our schools.

You can't take money that could go to our schools and allow it to go to private schools when you're not fully funding the education system in our state.

The average starting salary for a teacher right now in Utah is $43,000, that's actually a significant improvement and it tells you how far we have to go.

And so, I think the average pay, not an average, starting pay average pay for a teacher in this state is north of $50,000, maybe $53,000, somewhere around there and so with the price of housing, with inflation happening right now, I don't wanna live in a state where teachers can't buy a home, that's not okay and so, when teachers are making $60,000 a year to start, I will fully support vouchers, I'm all in on vouchers but we have a long way to go before we get there, I want to get there, I believe in vouchers, I can't wait to get there, but now is not the time.

So let's get our starting teacher pay at $60,000 and then let's do vouchers.

- So would you veto it if it gets to your desk?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah I would.

- Governor, what about other jobs in the state?

You've been sticking out for teachers and education but we know great resignation's been going on, a lot of people claim they're underpaid and they might be, I know you said you want teachers to be able to afford a house, what about other industries and businesses throughout Utah?

- Well, that that's the beauty of markets, right?

So we are seeing unfortunately inflation, inflation higher than we've seen since I was, you know, five years old I think, that's how long it's been since we've seen inflation like this and certainly some of the monetary policies of the federal government are causing that, it's unfortunate, however, I believe in markets, and markets work and that's why we're seeing so much of the great resignation is that people need to make more and they're demanding to make more and again, our unemployment's 1.9%, that's a great problem to have but it is still a problem, it's the lowest in our state's history, second lowest in the nation and by the way I will also tell you is, we've talked to our economists, there's this kinda theory out there that there's a lot of people not participating in the workforce right now.

That is true in many other states, it is not that true in Utah.

We've gone back over the past 25 years, we looked at our highest workforce participation rate in the last, during this century, and what we found was that we are very close to our highest participation rate when you adjust for age, so you have to stratify by age.

In the early 2000's when saw our highest participation rate, we were younger then.

So you're going to have more people who are retired now because we're a little older than we were back then as a population but when you adjust for age, and this was over a month ago, we were only down about 10,000 people from what would be our highest participation rate ever.

So that's 10,000 people that can make a difference for sure but it's not a huge number like most people expect.

So what you're seeing is, industry, they are raising their salaries for people.

That's the way the market works and that's okay, that's a good thing for people.

Now, government, also though, has to participate in the labor force, right?

We have over 20,000 employees here in the state of Utah and so we have to be able to match that, that great resignation isn't just happening in private industry, it's happening in the public sector as well and so we have several jobs that are well under market in our state.

We did a statewide survey of every job and we were able to find the places where we had the biggest gaps versus versus market rate, we've supplied those numbers to the legislature and we've asked them to help us get people back to where they are so that we're at least competitive with market, we will never be at or above market but we need to at least be competitive with market and that will allow employees to stay here and to do the things that they wanna do, to be able to buy homes and raise families, and so we're expecting significant raises for many if not most of our employees this year.

- Governor, what's your stance on Representative Phil Lyman's bill that would change Utah's mail and voting system?

- Well, both lieutenant governor and I have been very clear on these issues for a long time.

I mentioned it in my state of the state address that we're very proud of the record that we have in Utah when it comes to voting and secure voting.

So I agree that we have to make sure our elections are secure, as lieutenant governor overseeing elections for 7 1/2 years, every year we supported legislation that improved the security, we learn every year, every election we get together with the clerks, 29 clerks who actually run elections in our state, we oversee it, they run it, and we find out what worked, where they had some struggles, and then we encourage legislators to run bills to fix those problems.

There is another bill this year, it's Representative Hawkins' bill, was substituted out and passed yesterday or the day before and it has the blessing of the lieutenant governor and all of the clerks, it improves and enhances security for elections in our state but voting is a constitutional right and I'm not in favor of bills that make constitutional rights harder.

We should be proud of the way we do elections in this state, we are a model for the nation, and we believe that that will continue, and so we don't support that bill but we do support Representative Hawkins' bill and the changes that are involved there.

- Okay, that's all the time that we have for our television broadcast.

Thank you so much for joining us for "The Governor's Monthly News Conference".

- [Narrator] This has been "The Governor's Monthly News Conference", for transcripts, full video, and more information, visit pbsutah.org/governor.

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