What began as a marathon just over a month ago has turned into an all-out sprint as the Utah Legislature wraps up its session tonight. Instead of spending time making corny –yet educational! — parodies based on “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” representatives and senators will be burning the midnight oil to continue cranking through the last of 1,359 bills and pass a $16.7 billion budget. Here are some thoughts on bills that floated through the legislative process this year:

The budget – Utah has an additional $453 million this year and it looks like a lot of it is going to help address some long-term issues and preparing for the future, like highway upgrades and repairing facilities for an Olympics bid. Utah is also continuing to take steps with Operation Rio Grande to help address chronic homelessness.

Taxes and education – We understand taxes are a tricky subject. No one likes to pay them, but we need them to fund essential services. It will be interesting to see if voters will back a 10 cent gas tax hike to boost education funding over the original Our Schools Now proposal to increase income and sales tax rates by 0.45 percent each.

Higher education – Lawmakers are reportedly allocating another $9 million to address growing enrollment at Utah’s public universities. That may help, but it does appear to fall far short of the $83 million requested across the state system, including $12.1 million to Utah Valley University. We hope a good balance can be struck so universities will have sufficient revenue without it resting solely on the backs of students and their families.

Ballot initiatives – Some lawmakers have proposed delaying when voter-approved initiatives go into effect. The move would allow the Legislature to modify proposals after they’ve been considered and approved by voters. It’s already extremely difficult to get initiatives to the ballot, much less get them approved. These proposals, including an earlier one that could’ve short circuited an education tax increase by cutting revenue elsewhere, showed a deep disdain to Utah voters.

Local government reform – We hope the Senate will have time to fully consider House Bill 224, which would streamline part of the process of how counties change their form of government. After clearing the House on Feb. 21 and a Senate committee on Feb. 27, it’s languished until Wednesday.

Finally, given how time compressed each legislative session is, it seems like more time is necessary to put together rationally sound bills on issues like gun control. Lawmakers put the kibosh on one “red flag” proposal to temporarily remove guns from people who make violent threats or was determined to be dangerous. We certainly don’t want guns in the hands of people who are likely to inflict violence, but any law must respect the Second Amendment.

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