Each year, more than 80 percent of Utah’s General and Education Fund budget rolls-forward into the next budget year’s base. The Accountable Budget Process requires appropriations subcommittees to review budgets by creating an accountable process budget for approximately 20 percent of their responsibilities.
Details of the review process
By legislative rule, in the 2023 General Session, as much as $9.3 billion of the $11.6 billion General and Education Fund total will carry forward from FY 2023 into FY 2024. The process, established in the 2019 Interim, involves creating budgets by starting from zero and adding line items and programs recommended through an accountable process. This review includes enabling legislation, agency organization, longer-term trends in sources of finance and spending categories, and returns on investment. Legislative analysts pursue detailed questions about each program and distill answers into recommendations for policymakers’ consideration, which could lead to budget adjustments, further reviews, updated reporting requirements, improved performance measures, reorganizations, and program eliminations. June interim appropriations subcommittee meetings will provide the first of three rounds of reviewing agency budgets to comply with the ABP rule, with additional rounds in August and October. Accountable Process Budgets will be voted upon during the October meetings and will comprise Section 3 of each subcommittee’s base budget bill.
Separation of final budgets
The polished budgets developed through the ABP will be separate from the more formulaic base budgets for other areas of government.
