5 ways Utah lawmakers will spend taxpayer dollars next year

Lawmakers approved around $279 million in new funding requests for the next year late on Friday, the last night of Utah’s 2025 legislative session.

The Legislature signed off on 464 line items that represent spending priorities for legislative leadership in a tight budget year when lawmakers and state agencies competed over which of their bills and requests would get funded.

Budget chairs decided to give Utah Gov. Spencer Cox some of his big asks, while still ensuring that there was funding for bills that passed both chambers. There was also money for some proposals that failed, but lawmakers decided to bring about change with their spending decisions instead of by passing legislation.

Here are five of the major expenditures and surprises included in Utah lawmakers’ list of spending priorities.

Nuclear energy future

Cox received $8.25 million for his Operation Gigawatt initiative to double energy production over the next decade by investing in nuclear power.

While the dollar amount is far less than the $20 million Cox requested in his fiscal year 2026 budget recommendations to prepare nuclear reactor sites, it is much larger than the $1.75 million lawmakers tentatively set aside last week.

House Majority Leader Jefferson Moss, R-Saratoga Springs, said the state is looking for any way it can to speed up the development of nuclear reactors in Utah, whether its through agreements with neighboring states or by supporting research programs at the University of Utah.

“I just think this will help us to move the ball down the field,” Moss said.

Emergency funding for English language learners

The Legislature passed HB42 unanimously which would make an annual sum of $500,000 for “at-risk” students available to split between school districts with a significant increase in English language learner enrollment.

The bill defines a student learning English as a student who receives the very lowest score on an English language proficiency test that is given in the first 30 days of school to all students whose parents indicate that English is not their primary language.

But bill sponsor House Education Chair Candice Pierucci, R-Riverton, made a separate request for $5 million in one-time funds to serve as a “shot in the arm” for school districts struggling to keep up with the need for English instruction and larger class sizes because of increased immigration.

Budget committee members fully granted Pierucci’s request of $5 million to help train teachers, reduce class sizes, hire classroom aides and obtain other resources for English language learners, if a school district can show that one of their schools had a 75% increase in students learning English compared to the previous three-year average, and that the school lacks the funds to support the increase.

Debate commission shifts to UVU, the U

Late in the session, Rep. Nelson Abbott, R-Orem, introduced a bill that would have created a university-run election debate committee that would likely replace the nonprofit Utah Debate Commission.

The bill, which would have established the Utah Debate Committee at Utah Valley University to host primary and general election debates, failed in committee a week before the end of the legislative session. But senior appropriators ensured that the plan to shift responsibility for debates to public universities would still move forward.

The final-night “bill of bills” allocated $300,000 to Utah Valley University’s Gary R. Herbert Institute for Public Policy, and $300,000 to the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics with the intent for the institutions to “collaborate on a proposal to host nonpartisan candidate debates” and to establish “a statewide, nonpartisan debate organization.”

“The universities are going to figure it out,” said Senate Budget Vice Chair Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton. “They’ll figure out where they’re going to house it, where they’re going to do it.”

Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, both communicated that they think universities will be better suited to handle the logistics and organization of nonpartisan political debates.

School and big tech

Hands-on high school: Lawmakers approved $145,000 in funding for athlete and ambulance grants for high school rodeo, which would support trips from high school school rodeo clubs and the presence of EMTs at events.

Social media shakedown: The Legislature also appropriated money for the enforcement of two groundbreaking pieces of social media legislation: $51,500 to enforce the App Store Accountability Act, which would require app stores to obtain parental consent for minors downloading apps, and $195,000 to implement Data Sharing Amendments, which would give social media users with the right to manage their own data.