House passes substituted House Bill 98 after defeating amendment to add voter-approved public-safety tax

Representative John L. Valentine moved the chamber to substitute the first substitute of House Bill 98 with a second substitute, saying the change removes tax-commission technical amendments that would have unintentionally raised or lowered taxes. He said the goal was to “make it as close as we had to last year without changing the fiscal impact.”

The sponsor and other proponents described the bill as a targeted restriction of a previously broad municipal ‘‘blank check’’ for business license fees. Valentine said the second substitute preserves certain municipal authorities (parking services, arena tickets, utility franchise taxes, and specified municipal license fees) while limiting other bases for business-license fees and adding a set of narrowly defined local-option taxes.

Representative Cindy Harper proposed an amendment (pink sheet dated 02/21/1997) to create a voter-approved partnership that would permit municipalities in UTA-served areas to impose a one‑eighth cent (0.125%) sales tax for highways and public-safety funding, after the word “highways” in specified lines. Harper said the amendment would allow local elected officials and voters to address ‘‘specific funding needs for highways and public safeties within the UTA served area.’’

Representative Michael Ballantine opposed the Harper amendment, saying, “I resist the amendment. The amendment adds an eighth of a cent on top of the quarter cent…We’ll be giving away our sales tax capacity,” and warned it would amount to a large tax increase along the Wasatch Front. After debate, the House voted on the amendment; the motion failed on the voice/recorded sequence (the chair stated the motion failed).

Representative Valentine then moved technical corrections to the second substitute and explained several editorial changes (paragraph references, wording changes so collections read “begin collecting” rather than implying a single-day collection). The House adopted the technical amendments and proceeded to the second-step vote on the bill.

Voting on the second step of House Bill 98 closed with 63 yes votes and 9 no votes; the bill passed the House and was reported to the Senate for consideration.

The next procedural step is formal transmittal to the Senate for its consideration; no enactment date was specified on the floor. The bill packet included an intent language sheet dated 02/21/1997 that the sponsor asked to place on record clarifying the bill’s relationship to Utah Supreme Court precedent on county regulatory authority.