Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- House Speaker Mike Schultz says higher education funding and election oversight will likely be key focuses during the 2025 legislative session.
- He proposes shifting election oversight from the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office to a new, to-be-determined entity.
- Schultz also said bolstering programming for technical education in secondary schools and expanding Utah's school voucher program will be likely focuses.
OGDEN — Utah lawmakers intend to put a focus on scaling back spending at Utah's public universities and shifting oversight of elections from the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office during the coming 2025 session, says House Speaker Mike Schultz.
He also hopes for legislation bolstering tech offerings in Utah high schools and said augmenting Utah's school voucher program will likely be another topic getting lawmaker attention.
Education, he said Monday at a gathering hosted by the Weber County Republican Women, became one of his "top priorities" on becoming House speaker last year. The Hooper Republican also addressed immigration in Utah — the state doesn't have as dire a problem as other U.S. states, he maintains — and said lawmakers may have to make tweaks to 2024 legislation axing diversity programs at Utah's public universities.
Here's a rundown of what Schultz had to say:
Elections
Schultz said oversight of elections in Utah needs to be shifted from the Utah Lieutenant Governor's Office, underscoring sharp debate across the country over counting of ballots.
"Regardless of how you feel about the current governor or the current lieutenant governor, having them oversee the elections is not a good look. We started to hear that last year. I agreed. It will be one of the top priorities moving forward this year from the House," he said.
Among the possible options, he said, would be creation of a Utah Secretary of State post tasked with election oversight or creation of an independent election board made up of as many as seven members. "If you're worried about collusion, coercion, things like that, I think seven sets of eyes is a lot more transparent than one set of eyes," he said.
The issue came up during the 2024 legislative session, he said, but didn't move forward due to timing issues.
Immigration: He didn't allude to any specific legislation in the works with regard to immigrants here illegally but said the issue isn't as dire in Utah as in other states. The number of immigrants here is lower, per capita, than in other states, he said, "but we still have an issue that we need to work through."
Due to asylum and other policies enacted by President Joe Biden's administration, he said, many of the immigrant newcomers to the nation technically aren't here illegally. "Unfortunately, as much as we hate it, they're here legally," he said.
Secondary education: Schultz said he's preparing legislation to create a program to fund more career and technical education classes and high schools across the state. He cited the example of a technical education initiative in Davis School District, the Davis Catalyst Center.
"Let me tell you how awesome and amazing that is. It's a (career and technical education) high school, but it's a very broad CTE high school, all the way from computer science down to health care," he said. The benefit of such programs, according to Schultz, is that they can prepare high school students to be job ready on graduation.
"For so many years, technical education has been left out of our classrooms, and we're starting to see the consequences of that," he said.
Lawmakers will also look to augment the state's Utah Fits All voucher program, which was approved in 2023 and provides funding to qualifying families for kids attending private schools or tapping into other private education opportunities.
Last year, 27,000 students applied for voucher funding, he said, but there was only enough money for 10,000 of them. "So we're going to be looking to try to increase the opportunity for more of those students, more of those parents that want other options," Schultz said.
Higher education: He lauded HB261, the measure eliminating diversity programs at Utah's public universities, but said a few additional changes are in order without offering specifics. "There are a few ... cleanup things that we know about that we need to go back in and fix," he said.
More generally, he said Utah has "some great universities" but that changes are needed, particularly with regard to spending and academic focus. "One of the main things that I wanted to work on was higher ed reform — becoming more efficient, bringing our campuses back to Utah values to align more closely with the citizens of the state," he said.
To that end, Shultz said legislation is in the works aimed at prodding Utah's universities to cut spending by as much as 10%, though the target figures will vary from university to university. "And then they have to cut the programs that are inefficient, cut back on some of their staffing, the administrative costs," he said.
His vision, at least, is for universities to funnel funding to "high-demand areas" like computer science, engineering and nursing. "You have these huge demands that the workforce and businesses are clamoring for, but yet higher ed's focused on all this other stuff. So let's cut out all the other stuff. Let's reallocate that money back into the things that actually matter," he said.
Housing: Utah needs 40,000 new houses a year to keep pace with demand, Schultz said, but only around 20,000 are slated for construction for this year. "There's still a huge deficiency on that," said.
State lawmakers have tried to create incentives to address the issue and may consider legislation in 2025 encouraging allowances among locales for smaller lot sizes for single-family homes. But it's more a matter for local officials.
"Really, the onus is on them, on the local governments, to create opportunities because they're the ones that are over land-use decisions," he said.
