June 2015 Legislative Update!
Dear friends,
Hopefully your summer is going well and is full of backyard barbecues, family reunions, ice cream, hikes in our beautiful mountains, and spending time with those you love. I hope these newsletters are a good resource for tracking the work of the legislature as it continues during this interim period. As always, feel free to contact me at any time.
Other items
State Budget: Quick Facts
Utah State Budget and Related Appropriations
Interactive FY 2016 Budget
For those interested, the legislative staff has put together some good summaries of what was accomplished during the Legislative Session:
Hopefully your summer is going well and is full of backyard barbecues, family reunions, ice cream, hikes in our beautiful mountains, and spending time with those you love. I hope these newsletters are a good resource for tracking the work of the legislature as it continues during this interim period. As always, feel free to contact me at any time.
June Interim Session
Following the completion of the general legislative Session begins the off-season, or "Interim" Session. Once a month we meet in committees comprised of both House and Senate members and begin to craft and discuss proposed legislation for the 2016 session. Our latest Interim Session was on June 17, 2015.
Items discussed during the June 2015 Interim Session included:
Following the completion of the general legislative Session begins the off-season, or "Interim" Session. Once a month we meet in committees comprised of both House and Senate members and begin to craft and discuss proposed legislation for the 2016 session. Our latest Interim Session was on June 17, 2015.
Items discussed during the June 2015 Interim Session included:
- The State Auditor is backing a movement to establish term limits for several Utah political offices. [ABC4]
- Is too much of Utah's sales tax money going toward transportation? Some lawmakers think so and propose shifting a portion of the funds to education, among other programs. [Trib]
- The Education Interim committee discussed setting aside more money to train Utah teachers. [Trib] [DNews]
- A member of the House of Representatives will be sponsoring a bill that would tax e-cigarettes. [DNews]
- Three different legislative panels focused on present and future water usage in the state. [DNews] [Fox13]
- Received a briefing from committee staff regarding bail and bail bonds, including presentations on how the amount of bail is set and how bail interacts with bail bonds.
- Received a report services provided to veterans and coordination of veterans' services with other govt. entities.
- Received a presentation from staff regarding alimony. The committee discussed alimony issues and areas of alimony law that may need improvement.
- Received a report regarding Medicaid's preferred drug list for psychotropic drugs and whether it should be expanded beyond the one class already covered.
Other items
- State Budget
State Budget: Quick Facts
Utah State Budget and Related Appropriations
Interactive FY 2016 Budget
- WestFest!
Summary of the 2015 Regular Session
For those interested, the legislative staff has put together some good summaries of what was accomplished during the Legislative Session:
- A complete list of all bills that were passed can be found here: http://le.utah.gov/asp/passedbills/passedbills.asp?session=2015GS
- A good explanation of some of the more interesting bills that passed can be found here: http://le.utah.gov/Session/2015/pdfdoc/2015SelectedHighlights.pdf
- FY2015 - 2016 budget. If you want to know how Utah will be spending its money over the next fiscal year, click here for a fantastic summary.