This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
On the heels of his third election landslide and with an eye toward four years of working with a Republican White House and Congress, The Salt Lake Tribune sat down last week with Gov. Gary Herbert to discuss his vision for the state, starting with whether his recent victory constitutes a mandate from voters:
HERBERT: I guess other people can define whether its a mandate or not. I just know I won by 38 points and I won by 44 points in the primary, so i think we certainly have the vast majority of people of Utah [who] like what we've been doing and what we've done and what we've accomplished. And expect some more of the same going forward.
Clearly our focus has been on economic development. Our focus will continue to be on growing the economy. That really is the foundation of a good quality of life. So our emphasis will continue to be there and I'm humbled and grateful because we see the fruits of our labors. Just a week ago Forbes again named us the best place in America for business and careers, third year in a row and six out of seven years. So that will continue to be part of our effort going forward, going down that road of economic development and expansion.
That being said, I know this is not a surprise to you because you heard us say it on the campaign, we need to have a renewed emphasis on education and we want to, in fact — just like we set the goal for our economy to become the best economy in America, which we've accomplished — let's see if we can't, in fact, make our education system the best in America. It's not going to be easy, but i do believe its doable, and I think if we all start pulling together and [have] less infighting, i think we can accomplish that goal of becoming the best education system in America.
TRIBUNE: You've said a lot that "it's not all about the money but it's some about the money." How do you continue to grow the funding for education when you've got 10,000-plus new students this year, $115 million? I know you're putting your budget together now and you don't want to tip your hand too much, but how do you continue to increase the education funding when you're barely keeping your head above water with the new students coming in?
HERBERT: You are right in that we do have a unique situation in Utah. We have a high birthrate, highest in America. We have larger family sizes, the largest in America. Just that fact makes it unique. If we did not have that as a factor, if we just had the typical household size, the typical size in America, we go from 51, counting Washington, D.C., in per-pupil spending to 41, without spending any more money.
TRIBUNE: Just per capita or students per person?
HERBERT: Where our households are larger, we have an extra kid per family in the classroom. So if we had the typical family size, per-pupil spending goes up to 41 without us spending any more money. We have fewer students in the classroom. So that's part of the Utah unique.
Secondly, not only do we have that but we are also a very fast growing state, which means we not only are products of internal growth with our high birth rate, but people are moving to Utah. They like what they find here when it comes to quality of life and economic opportunity and hence, where many states have a flat line on student growth — their student population has flatlined or their's is decreasing — ours is growing. You mentioned the 10,000 students, it's probably, for the state portion of that, not $100 million. It's probably closer to $70 million, but that still is a significant amount of new money that comes in that we have to say just immediately, "That's got to go into growth just to keep us treading water and keep us status quo when it comes to classroom sizes."
So yeah we have a unique challenge, but we're finding better ways to be more efficient with how we spend the money and consequently we see test scores going up, graduation rates going up, more people are college- and career-ready than ever before. Our minority scores are up 17 percent when it comes to graduation rates, we just had another 1 percent tick-up here in graduation rates. So now we're [up] 10 percent over the last five years in our graduation rates increase. It gives us shouting distance. If we were 90 [percent] we'd be No. 1 in America. So again, there's reasons to be optimistic about what we've done and hopeful to what we can achieve going into the future.
TRIBUNE: But again, you think the continued economic growth, I think it's been 3 or 4, a little over 4 percent (Ed Note: GDP growth as been 3.4 percent) I think, which is robust, but it's not going to get you climbing up that list.
HERBERT: Well, it depends on how soon you need to get there. If we continue to grow and grow and grow and we have our GDP growth which is above inflation — depending on what our growth numbers are, and they'll probably fluctuate up and down — we'll move up the ladder on the ranking of per-pupil student spending.
There's only three ways to put more money into system, and that is you grow the economy, which is what we've done, and we've put $1.8 billion of new money into education, both public and higher, since I came into office, which is really where you need to measure it, the 2010 fiscal year. We've increased spending 11 percent after you adjust for inflation. So there's been 11 percent growth, and the peak was 2008, we went into the recession — I'll give you the diagram, watch, it goes down and so I come in at the trough, the bottom, we've increased from that point 11 percent, which puts us above the peak of 2008. So we're not in the hole anymore. We're actually out of the hole and growing. So that's been a v successful way to put more money into education by growing the economy.
We've also reprioritized. We say, "We're not going to put as much money here in transportation, we're going to put more money into education. We've had to reprioritize. And the third way is raising taxes, which we've done some of. The transportation, for example, is an example of us getting out of balance. We had not adjusted the gasoline tax for 18 years and the erosion of that purchasing power over inflation and more efficient automobiles meant the user side of funding of our transportation was being diminished and more reliance on the general fund and that's not the appropriate balance. So we raised the gasoline tax which puts us on a more equitable trajectory for users who use the roads more, pay more, and it also allows us to not take as much from general fund — which by the way, general fund has been used to augment education, particularly higher education. So that tax increase not only helps with transportation, but it also helps with, in fact, education.
TRIBUNE: You mention the general fund has been used to help higher education. There's sort of been a drawing down of that, draining that reserve. It's almost been a savings account for education for a long time, because the income tax has gone up but sales tax hasn't. Are you, within the four years of your coming term, do you envision it taking major sales tax reform to keep the general fund balanced?
HERBERT: Well, let me say a couple things. I think that reviewing your tax structure and tax policy is something that ought to be an ongoing, continuing thing to see if we've got it right. It's like an economic engine. You fine-tune it, you want to make sure it's not getting out of sync when it comes to the mixture of oxygen and petroleum. The economy is an engine and we want to make sure we have the most dynamic growing economic engine that's possible, and we do have. So I'm reluctant to do too much tweaking to something that's become very successful and the envy of the country.
That being said, there are some things we could probably take a look at that probably ought to be considered. For example, it's got to be frustrating for everyone, the fact that we have $200 million a year in [Internet] sales tax that's owed but there's no mechanism to collect. So that's why we're working with Congressman Chaffetz and others in the delegation and the Congress as a whole to see if they can allow us, based on equity and fairness, so these moneys can be collected and sent to the tax commission. That's money that could be redirected and sent back to education. You wouldn't have to raise any kind of tax. It's just escaped taxes that are owed and not collected. So that's a significant portion. By the way, it's not just the state portion of $200 million. It's another $100 million of local taxes that are escaped too. So an adjustment on our sales tax, the collection of what is owed and not collected, would help us significantly when it comes to our revenue stream for education.
TRIBUNE: You talked a little bit about working with the federal delegation and this is going to be the first time since you've taken office you're going to have a Republican in the White House and in control of both chambers of Congress …
HERBERT: Certainly as governor.
TRIBUNE: Yeah. That's what I mean. As lieutenant governor you had the Bush administration. How is it going to be different, do you think?
HERBERT: You know i think one, the difference will be playing defense as opposed to playing offense. [Ed Note: Herbert's staff confirmed the governor meant the opposite.] I think we can be a lot more proactive now in getting things done. And I know i just met with the governors a week ago and we're all pretty optimistic about the opportunity. There's no guarantees and the proof is in the pudding of getting things done. And so i think we're all optimistic that having somebody who is a Republican in the office, in the White House, who understands more appropriately the role of the states and trying to devolve authority back to the states, out of Washington, D.C. That gives us a lot of hope and frankly it's going to be a lot better for the taxpayer, because we are a lot more effective in the delivery of services at the state level than out of Washington, D.C. So more of that responsibility ought to be given to the states we can do it better and we can do it for less money.
TRIBUNE: Specific areas where you hope you'll see a more friendly approach?
HERBERT: Sure. Block granting moneys. What I said to Mike Pence, my friend, when i met with him last Monday [Nov. 14], is, "Let me just tell you what I've told my own congressional delegation, which is a good policy for America: One, don't take the money from us in the first place. We don't need any new programs, we don't want any new programs. In fact, we'd prefer that you shrunk the programs. So don't take any more money from our taxpayers. And second, when you take the money for programs that already exist, you've got to block grant the money back to us to give us maximum flexibility where we can create our own unique programs based on our own unique demographics and unique politics. We can come up with better solutions and, again, provide services that we the people of Utah think are important for less money."
And i think it could be transportation. I've worked with our contractors here in the Intermountain West and they say they can do the same job for 15 pct less money if they didn't have all the strings attached to all the money that comes out of Washington, D.C. We see this with our local governments. Our local government people get federal dollars for programs, will come to the state and say, "We'll trade you a federal dollar for 85 cents of state money." That's how much they'll discount it because they can do more with less by not having all the strings attached to it. So transportation.
Education, again, giving us the money without strings attached would be a godsend to us. The fact that we're trying to in fact make sure there aren't strings attached to this new ESSA [Every Student Succeeds Act] and give flexibility to the states, we see hope there with the new administration.
Health care. We could solve most of the health care issues if the moneys were block granted to the states rather than the one-size-fits-all mentality that comes out of Washington, D.C., that has no cap, that has the potential for runaway negative fiscal impact on our own state budget. If they block grant the money to us and let us have flexibility, we can come up with a program that would make sense to the people of Utah and again save the taxpayers dollars and give health care to those who need it.
TRIBUNE: Do you think there's going to be an Obamacare repeal and is it something that would be beneficial?
HERBERT: Certainly there's a lot of talk. It's what President-elect Trump campaigned on …
TRIBUNE: But he's backed away from that.
HERBERT: Well, they're saying repeal and replace the Republicans have always said repeal and replace. Even the Democrat side has said we can modify and improve and make better the existing Affordable Care Act. I've had the conversations directly with President Obama. He knows it's not perfect, so if you have reason to modify and improve and repeal and replace with what i think you can actually get together. And I think the Republicans will try to, in fact, have some kind of bipartisan modifications to the Affordable Care Act. I don't know anything more than what I saw on the television with "60 Minutes" with President-elect Trump saying keeping pre-existing conditions as part of the new health care act and all children to stay on their parents insurance until they're 26 are two things he'd like to retain. So repeal and replace. I'm just here to suggest to you that from a government standpoint and it reflects, I think, the thinking of most of the governors in America. Block grant the money back to the states. Let us create our own programs and we'll do more with that money and we'll get better outcomes than the one-size-fits-all approach that comes out of Washington, D.C.
TRIBUNE: Let's talk briefly about the federal lands litigation. That was one of the things that was on the back burner a little bit when it looked like there was going to be a Democratic Supreme Court and a potential for a Democrat in the White House. Does this provide any more incentive to proceed on that or do you still see that as something that is a wait-and-see?
HERBERT: I believe Republicans and Democrats alike — and I've talked many times with this current administration — believe that the best way to resolve the public lands disputes and whatever disputes you want to talk about — whether its RS2477, whether we should declare wilderness, monument designations, the ability to develop our natural resources, our energy development, protecting the farms, our agriculture needs — those are best done legislatively. And again, I think that was the motivation behind the PLI — the Public Lands Initiative by Congressman Bishop and then Congressman Chaffetz and certainly Senator [Mike] Lee — let's create a legislative fix, and the Democrats in this current administration believe that. Now whether we've got the right legislative fix that can actually get passed remains to be seen, cert in this upcoming lame-duck session, but it doesn't mean we can't start over.
It will be interesting to see who is put in as the Department of Interior secretary and who the head of the [Bureau of Land Management] will be. I expect we'll find people that understand the uniqueness of public lands here in the Intermountain West that many people in the east don't. I hope they put over Interior somebody who understands the Intermountain [West] and the West where most of the public lands reside and it's not just some kind of theory and they see the actual reality on the ground. And i hope the same of the BLM. We have worked in the past with and current Interior Secretaries, [Ken] Salazar and Sally Jewell and with the current BLM director Neil Cornsby and his predecessor. We've been able to work with them. I think we'll have an easier time, obviously, working with a Republican administration.
TRIBUNE: One of the areas you broke with your fellow Republican governors is on the refugee issue. There's been talk this week and last week about registries for people from certain countries and yesterday the Attorney General [Sean Reyes] said he thought that was un-American. What's your sense on that particular issue and how do you approach it? Because as I understand it the state is still moving down this vetting process that you had called for?
HERBERT: We understand the proper and appropriate role of government is to protect the people. That's why we have a government. Governments were formed to make sure we have peace in the valley and opportunities for prosperity. We have national defense needs. The security of the borders and immigration is really a federal issue. We've challenged it in the courts and we lost. The courts reaffirmed this is a federal issue. That being said, we are a country of immigrants. We've always had immigration that has taken place. It's been a big part of the infusion of new talent and diversity and people here. Most all of us trace our ancestry back to somebody who immigrated sometime and i don't see any need to change that.
I do see a need to make sure we vet people properly. That our borders are not porous that we actually know who comes across the border and resides in our country and I think that's what Mr. Trump is going to be talking about when he says, 'I want to secure the borders.' Everyone talks about it. We've been talking about securing the borders, Democrats and Republicans, for a long time. We all agree on it, why don't we just do it? I expect that under Trump that part will happen. Whether it's a wall or a fence or electronic means, it's probably going to be a combination of all of the above. But that's the first thing.
Now when it comes to refugees who really are running from terror, they're not the terrorists, they're running from terrorism, America certainly has a role to play, as do people in Europe and other places, to accommodate and help these people who are being displaced. We have a refugee program here in Utah. All we've asked the administration in Washington, D.C., is, when people come into our borders, we want to know who they are. Who do you send? Who are you putting into our state? We ought to know who they are so we can greet them, so we can welcome them, so we can in fact vet them again. They were already being vetted in some way by the federal government. We've got what we call SBI agents, State Bureau of Investigations agents, we've hired an extra one or two here in the state to again meet somebody, if Robert Gehrke comes in we meet you …
TRIBUNE: That's a real risky thing.
HERBERT: We meet you, we welcome you. What's your background? And we have a chance to kind of review your situation and then help introduce you to the things you're going to need. Maybe you don't speak English. We're going to help you speak English. Maybe you need skills to get a job. We'll help you get skilled at a job. We want to be able to help you integrate appropriately and for sure to not be radicalized once you're here, so i think Utah is doing a very good job in striking the balance between public safety and welcoming people who are looking for a safe haven as they've been displaced by terrorism in their own home country.
TRIBUNE: And the cooperation from the federal government has been … ?
HERBERT: I think we think it's been OK. Again, they've been a little less than forthright in who's coming into our borders, but they've said they will improve and I've met with the FBI back in Washington, D.C., so I think it's getting better and i think with the Republican administration, certainly Mike Pence understands that as a governor. He gives us a lot of encouragement and hope because we have one of our own guys whose had to run a state, Hes' going to be vice president and I think that gives us significant entree into making sure President Trump understands some of the issues unique to states and state governments. If we can get every state healthy the country is healthy.
TRIBUNE: The registry though, is that something you think they should reinstitute?
HERBERT: You know, I don't understand the need for the registry or how that's going to work. So I'm probably not as informed about that issue as i need to be or can be. I don't know what that means. I don't like people having to sign up and say, I'm this. I'm a Mormon. I'm a Catholic, I'm a Jew, I'm a Muslim and sign up. That doesn't seem to be too American to me.