Lawmakers approve budget bill despite protests over $15 million Tax Commission building item

The Utah House on Feb. 26 passed Senate Bill 215 after a contentious floor exchange over capital funding that included a $15 million appropriation for a Tax Commission building.

Representative Glenn Brown urged colleagues to resist inserting the $15,000,000 appropriation into the bill, saying the legislature should not prioritize the building over other needs such as human services, class-size reduction and higher education. "If you vote for the bill with this $15,000,000 in, I think you send a pretty loud signal as how we judge this building against these other considerations," Brown said as he explained his intent to offer several line-item deletions.

Brown laid out specific proposed reductions: removing $180,000 from a water security development account (page 4, item 22); removing $120,000 from the Water Resources Conservation Development account (page 12, item 53); cutting $4,000,000 from a general fund item (page 20); and restoring or renewing $5,500,000 in capital project funds for a Department of Transportation maintenance building (page 21). He framed the motion as an effort to rebalance priorities before final passage.

The House briefly went under a call and then lifted it; members debated and then voted. The clerk announced the tally for Senate Bill 215 as 39 affirmative votes and 34 negative votes, and the bill passed the House. The bill was publicly read by title and the reading and signatures were to be entered into the journal.

Representative Brown objected to the process and urged defeat, but the majority voted to approve the measure as presented. The transcript records the proposed line-item deletions he offered during the debate but does not record subsequent adoption of those specific deletions; the bill passed in the recorded tally above.