Janice W. says:

The senators might as well be writing for the tabloids as their accusations on waste in some departments have no truth and they are not required to substantiate inappropriate posts. It is deplorable they they can attempt to cost people jobs on false pretenses.

HollyontheHill says:

Too late now, but did the state really need to pay for signs to notify us that the unshoveled, unsalted walkways at the Capitol are closed during inclement weather?

Sue says:

I support the Obama administration in recinding all of the last minute oil leases that the Bush administration approved in Dec. 08. It was more of Bush's tactics to do whatever damage they could do to the environment in the name of money. Thank goodness their damage could be undone this time.

Concerned says:

How is it even remotely possible, in this day and age of budget cuts and cracking down on frivilous spending the Utah Army National Guard can find it ok to purchase a pontoon party boat of all things? I cant imagine what that cost. I can only imagine this is the tip of the iceberg in careless spending of taxpayer money.

Doug B says:

Yesterday morning I saw a legislator on the morning news and he said that we are cutting the frivolous programs and making the state budget more efficient.

Isn't this what you were supposed to be doing all along!! At some point all these programs were worth it, atleast according to our lawmakers. And if they were not worth it why did you spend the money on them in the first place??? We in Utah have gotten complacent with many years of budget surpluses and if our lawmakers spent the money efficiently we should be in better shape now. There is nothing better to spend spend spend and not worry about the future but that is not why we elect leaders.

Nan says:

The centralization of IT in the state into DTS has been an absolute nightmare and a costly one at that. Programs are now paying a great deal more for connectivity, desktop support and programming staff, yet the staff do ot necessarily see the rate that programs pay too support their salaaries. Someone needs to do an audit on DTS - when DTS "took over" all State IT services, it didn't even have the billing structure in place to ensure that the proper programs were billed for services used. Charges were made without an understanding of the impact on budgets, many of which are federal funded. When charges significantly increase as they did with DTS, no one ever considered the impact the increased costs would have on programs. DTS employees got an across the board increase (only DTS employees, not the rest of state employees, no one! talked with Departments to assess the impact those increases would have on programs, services, etc. I do not think that we are any better off with a "centralized" system than we were before with a decentralized system. Surely there is a better way to provide IT services.

Allen says:

We need to get rid of the State Liquor Store system. It was dated back to prohabition. We do not need to employ state workers to be store keepers. I know they produce money for the state, but take away the building overhead, health, and retirement. We need to make loquor stores public business, increase employment, increase tax dollars and allow business people to run a business. We also need to get rid of the 3.2 rule. It causes citizens to cross state lines to buy real beer. 3.2 was left over from prohabition which was repealed in 29, most beers are the same from state to state as a 3.2 works our to between 4 to 5%. Let Utah come out of the dark ages and give back the freedoms to the citizens. I have found no evidence that state run stores reduce DUI, underage drinking, or alcholism, it is only control of Utah citiiz! ens, heck we can't even advertise so a person from out of state could find one. I think private business whould increase revenue from business license, loquor license, sales taxes, income taxes from employees,jobs, availibility of product. Private business liquor stores would be evenmore careful on selling to of age people or fear loss of license. when the State store sells to a minor, we can't remove their license!

Doug B. says:

I think you should furlough state employees to save money. Maybe a couple days a month so they could take them on different days and our services would be available to us during regular business hours. Or change their hours to 36 hours per week like some other states do.

James says:

You need to publicize this page. I saw it on the KSL website for one day and then it disappeared. How are you going to get good feedback if no one knows this page exists?

Carolyn M. says:

We have wasted tax payers dollars far too long favoring illegal immigration on the backs of Utah taxpayers.
With the economy worsening we need the tax revenues and jobs for our own citizens.
We can no longer afford to pay the cost for services to maintain "illegals" such as education, healthcare, law enforcement,foodstamps, welfare, jobs, etc. etc.
Immigration is great when done legally.We must enforce legal immigration law. We simply can not afford to ignore this issue (Proposition 81) any longer.
It is the duty of our elected officials to protect and uphold the law for our citizens.

Brandon says:

I nominate THIS WEBSITE -- you should investigate this website's creation and maintenance for wasteful government spending. The reason I say that is because I don't honestly believe that any of you are honestly going to look into the SIGNIFICANT issues the people have brought up here. What you are going to do, instead, is to look for "pet projects"... issues that are easy to sway people and easy to solve but that probably don't amount to a serious cost-savings when compared to many of the other, larger, problems also presented here that you will just skip over. You will find "problems" here which don't solve a whole lot but sound nice and make people who vote for you "FEEL BETTER" (about you). This website is a scam, a political tactic, a device to mask the public's eyes to what it is you are REALLY doing. The guy who posted the furniture you guys bought and the prices you guys paid for each item is the example I draw from to demonstrate that this is true. If you guys cared so much about wasteful spending, you wouldn't be the ones holding the reins for that furniture! Also, if you were TRULY interested in wasteful spending you wouldn't be looking for advice from citizens about such small expenses (by comparison) when we have a looming $800BILLION dollar waste of government money being created right now as I type this on the federal level -- instead, you'd be spending your time and resources gathering citizen's groups, lawyers, politicians, etc. together at the state level and trying to determine (in a very big and public way that EVERYONE in the state would know about) how, exactly, the people of the state of Utah can absolve ourselves of this national fiscal abuse. Just a few days ago the legislature of Vermont got tired of the heavy-handedness of the federal gov't and passed a bill declaring that any further encroachment of Rights by the federal government would be construed by VT as a final violation of the constitutional contract and reason enough for VT to secede from the union. If VT can do this, surely UT can draft something saying we absolutely refuse to accept the federal pork-barrel spending bills and absolutely refuse to pay anything in higher taxes, EVER, to pay off that portion of the federal deficit. But no... instead of spending your time educating the public of Utah and doing your best to DEFEND us against our aggressors at the federal level, you are trying to hide from the real problems we face by asking us to "turn in" a police department who maybe spent too much on a new car or something. Instead of trying to save us BILLIONS of future debt you are trying to make us "FEEL GOOD" by helping us to save $10,000. You guys are a shame, a mockery, and are disgusting. Stop trying to hide your own scams by hunting down other scammers. This isn't Salem and we shouldn't be helping you find "witches" -- YOU ARE THE WITCHES!

Does it matter says:

Who is funding this blog?
And why was this made on January 21?
Personally, I think it is irresponsible to provide a forum for public opinion that prominently displays figures of public office without any information regarding who is paying for it.
The lack of information reguarding the creation and funding of this website should certainly be available.
I think it would provide a better and more informed forum, if this website included budget information for Utah.

Rod says:

Stop giving to illegal aliens and they will leave. Take away the reason for being here and they will leave. This should save a lot of money. Illegal is ILLEGAL!!!!

Freddy B says:

If we continue to ignore the Illegal Alien population issue and keep pretending that it does not translate into higher crime rates, worsening gang problems, rising costs of medical services, school etc., ALL things inherently owed to all citizens and NONE to those who defy our laws, come here, use what they will, think they have equal rights as citizens, then I fear that in a few short years it will be too late to address, and we will become like many cities of slums and gangs, housing projects, young kids and young men with guns, shooting for turf, an overwhlemed police force who all too often turn an eye for the problems have become to overwhelming, the courts overburdeoned, the jails overcrowded and the city deteriorate and smeared with grafitti..No, we must tackle the illegal alien problem now...for pretending it isn't so ba! d now and waiting for another day simple adds on to the pile until the pile cannot be undone. We need a proactive approach and not a reactive. Presently, we are in a state of denial. Look at California with its 31 billion dollar shortfall, much of it is maintaining the cost of the status quo inasmuch as it hails itself as the "Safe Haven" for illegals...Now, when many want something done, it cannot, the time for action had passed, the numbers too great and the pressure too cumbursome, the politics of it too devicive...If things could have been addressed many years ago, perhaps the costs savings of providing for those illegal however unfortunate and passionate we may be..would be far less. We cannot break laws and then demand equality. No, first we do things legally and that includes "Entry" into the U>S and then demand equal access. The notion of "Free Rides" must come to an end and surely Utah is not immune and will suffe immensely over time, so the question then becomes...When t! hat time does come, will it be too late? I fear, it truly will be.

Amy says:

Why do the people who decide to have more children than they can afford get a tax break while people like myself who have chosen to never have children still have to pay taxes for everyone elses children while they get tax breaks and I don't??? I think if you hit the age of 35 or 40 and you still don't have children that you should receive a tax break for not contributing to the population. For those people who want to have these large families, they should pay extra for their kids to go to school and to be a part of the population. I am tired of having to pay for other peoples children!!

Dale M says:

Once again the State of Utah builds a new project and on the Security Access Control equipment they only allow one company in the state to give them a price Utah /Yamas Controls who is the only company in the state that carries the TAC product line. So they will again carge the state 3 x the price because of no competition. The project is Webber School District South Ogden Jr. High New School. The state of Utah over the past decade has spent 10's of millions of dollars to this company.Maybe you should check the state employees who go to Hawaii free each year on vacation and stay at the owners Condo for free.

Doug says:

A few years ago, I heard than there were 50 IT Data Centers in state agencies. Since then, I believe there may have been efforts to consolidate State services, but don't know if they included consolidating Data Centers. If so, there would clearly be cost savings on storage racks, server disk space, and administrative costs, etc.

Kevin says:

Remove 9/10 off the price of gas. I can't pay for 9/10 a cent so you shouldn't charge me for it.

Welcome to all Utah Policy Daily readers!

This morning, our blog was picked up by the fantastic Utah Policy Daily (www.utahpolicy.com). We welcome Utah's political junkies to our site and hope that we can be an outlet for your thoughts and welcome your input as the sentries of politics.
We also encourage our readers and contributors to watch for an upcoming news story to be aired on Fox 13.
Thank you to all of you who have contributed so far! We are grateful for your front-line perspective and look forward to hearing from as many citizens as possible.

Brent C says:

I think this is a great idea if used correctly. This could create some accountability that would otherwise go unseen.
I would like to start with a question as to why Legislature is not listed as one of the Governmental agencies? There is waste their as well. For example, reimbursing for lodging, meals and travel even when Legislatures choose to return home. Also, was Legislatures included in the 7.5% cuts for the 2009 budget? Will they be take cuts in 2010 budget? All other State Agencies were and are taking these cuts.
So please let this be for ALL areas funded by Tax Payers.