While Utah voters will have numerous issues to vote on this November, perhaps none will change the future of Utah’s politics and spending than Constitutional Amendment A, which proposes to allow income tax revenues to fund any state needs after fulfilling the requirement to support the systems of higher and public education, after providing a budgetary stabilizing account, and after using a portion of revenue growth for changes in student enrollment and inflation. The amendment also proposes to remove the state portion of the sales tax on food. The approval of this amendment by the voting public would upend a constitutional provision that has been in place since the inception of the state and fundamentally change the way state funds are spent.
The Legislature has repeatedly assured voters and education advocates alike that public education would continue to be fully funded, though some voters would argue that it already is not fully funded. In fact, one of the Legislature’s stated goals were this amendment to pass is to increase the per pupil spending amount. HB 394, passed during the 2023 General Session, sets this increase at 2% in the first year. It also holds the education budget harmless as enrollment declines and reinvests those funds in the per pupil amount.
Utah’s artificial silos for tax revenue is an anomaly in the United States. No other state has a comparable earmark on a whole tax type. The reason for this is simple: Legislatures need spending flexibility to respond to their state’s needs. Utah’s needs extend far beyond public education. Public safety, affordable housing, mental health services, homelessness, wildfire mitigation and transportation all need funding, but at the moment, none of these issues can be funded using income tax revenues. Many of these issues have a direct impact on Utah’s schoolchildren and affect what happens in the classroom.
It is easy to frame this proposal as an attempt to “take money away” from children or education. The reality is that it’s much more simple than that. It is giving the Legislature the ability to do what we expect them to do anyway: spend tax revenues where they are most needed. There are numerous provisions and protections already enshrined in statute to guarantee the continued prioritization of public education; this amendment simply allows for the flexibility afforded to virtually every other public body when it comes to spending.