LAST EDITED ON Dec-09-16 AT 03:20PM (MST)[p]The "UTAH TRANSFER OF PUBLIC LANDS ACT" not only allows the selling of public land, the Legislature has already set up the bank account to hold the money. They also promise to return the majority of those proceeds to the Feds upon Closing since the State is not seeking the revenue from selling the land, but the ongoing property tax from the public land being turned private.
The state education system is funded by property taxes which is why the Land Grab proponents continually say the land grab is good for schools. If the land is kept public, it will not produce property tax and will not benefit schools. The Republicans can't have it both ways. If it is good for education, then by default it will not remain public. Also, the Feds currently pay the counties each year money known as Payment In Lieu Of Taxes, which is funding meant to compensate counties for having public land within their borders... this PILT money will obviously go away.
I personally asked Mike Noel, the sponsor of the UTAH TRANSFER OF PUBLIC LANDS ACT, to include a clause that lands not be sold and he would not agree. The State-sponsored study specifically states that land MUST be sold to private individuals to balance the budget and that the State will still not ever recover the initial start-up costs of the public land takeover.
Also, the State of Utah is Constitutionally-required to have a balanced budget every year. This means that as public lands need to be managed and expenses rise, or a bad fire year costs hundreds of millions of dollars, or natural resource prices fall reducing revenue, or any other future decline in funding... the state is required to raise money that year or dip into its reserves. Eventually the state must make more money and this revenue-increase must be done by selling public land or a tax-increase (see the Amazon deal from this week that raises taxes by $200 Million). How long before tax increases no longer work and they must sell public land? I think not long.
Grizzly