What will lawmakers spend your tax dollars on? The first decisions on next year’s budget are coming later this week.
Legislators are sifting through hundreds of millions of dollars of appropriations requests.
(Francisco Kjolseth | Tribune file photo) Members of the House of Representatives recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the Utah Capitol in this Jan. 19, 2021, file photo.
| Feb. 10, 2021, 1:00 p.m.
The midpoint of the 2021 Utah Legislature is later this week, which means lawmakers are finalizing their priority spending lists for your tax dollars before the final budget is approved in the coming weeks.
Legislative leaders will vote on the appropriation requests later this week.
Utah prepares for drive-thru inoculation sites with big boost in COVID-19 vaccine
and last updated 2021-02-09 20:02:18-05
SALT LAKE CITY â Utah s Department of Health is working with the state s largest health care providers to create mass vaccine clinics to supplement the efforts of local health departments, FOX 13 has confirmed.
The agency is anticipating that within the next few weeks, Utah s share of COVID-19 vaccine doses will jump dramatically. Right now, the state gets about 70,000 to 75,000 doses weekly that it exhausts as it vaccinates Utahns over the age of 70.
By March 1, that could change. Between Pfizer and Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, we could be looking at somewhere between 243,000 to 245,000 doses coming every week, Rich Lakin, the head of the Utah Department of Health s immunization program, said in an interview Tuesday with FOX 13.
Spenser Heaps, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY Week two of the 2021 Utah Legislature began with news that one Utah lawmaker is hospitalized with COVID-19 and two others tested positive for the disease.
Rep. Jon Hawkins, R-Pleasant Grove, has been hospitalized with the novel coronavirus after becoming ill before the session started Jan. 19. On Monday, Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, and Senate Budget Vice Chairman Don Ipson, R-St. George, both tested positive during rapid testing that is available to lawmakers and Capitol Hill staff.
Ipson tested negative Jan. 22 and remained in Salt Lake City over the weekend, but after testing positive on Monday, he returned to St. George.
With the passage of SB1, the Utah Legislature funded not just ongoing operations for Utah’s public schools, but also a 6% weighted-pupil unit increase, inflation, student growth and $1,500 teacher bonuses.