Lawmakers double Utah Inland Port Authority budget to $2.5 million

SALT LAKE CITY — As two bills resulting from negotiations over the Utah Inland Port Authority continue to chug through the Utah Legislature, legislative leaders have prioritized funds to more than double the port authority's operating budget.

When the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee met late Friday night, it approved a $20 billion budget that included an additional $1.5 million for the Utah Inland Port Authority's ongoing yearly budget, bumping its appropriation from $1 million to $2.5 million a year.

The additional funding, according to Jill Flygare, the port authority's chief operating officer, is to slowly ramp up the port authority's budget for additional staff, administrative overhead, office space and legal expenses, and not to build any infrastructure — at least not yet.

"None of this will be for capital investment within any project areas for the port authority, Flygare told KSL on Monday. "It's all operational."

By the end of 2025, Flygare expects the port authority to be fully "self-sustaining" by using the jurisdiction's tax increment, or tax dollars reaped from future development in the port's 16,000-acre jurisdiction west of the Salt Lake City International Airport. But for now, the port authority needs state money for help.

"We are a small and lean staff," she said. "We really were looking to the Legislature for some state upfront investment."

The extra money, Flygare said, will be used in the first year for additional staff hires, perhaps one person to help with business development and focused mainly on "satellite" ports or smaller ports in willing rural areas. In later years, Flygare says the money may be used to hire business plan consultants with a "high level of expertise in areas of air quality, environmental sciences and traffic to help mitigate" impacts.

Faced with what legislative leaders have called an ongoing "structural imbalance" that the failed tax reform package would have addressed, it's been a tight budget year for general fund asks. Though lawmakers didn't meet full asks for multimillion dollar programs including mental health or affordable housing, lawmakers did prioritize the port authority's full ask.

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"We're thrilled with what we received," Flygare said. "It's what we were asking for."

Port opponents on Monday were caught off guard by the $1.5 million allotment, since the fiscal note on the main bill seeking adjustments to the port authority's statute continued as of Monday to have a $0 fiscal note, according to an online version of the bill.

But the $1.5 million in additional ongoing funds for "inland port administration" was included in the Executive Appropriations Committee list, backed by joint legislative leadership and approved Friday.

Deeda Seed, a campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity and a lead organizer of the group Stop the Polluting Port, who learned of the $1.5 million bump from the Deseret News on Monday, was frustrated to see another chunk of taxpayer money being funneled toward "a project that has generated tremendous community concern and still has not shown us a business plan or an analysis of the environmental harm."

"They are really, apparently, based on this information moving full steam ahead," Seed said. "And yet, they haven't had a public board meeting for six months. We do not have a business plan. It's starting to become outrageous, frankly, the lack of information the public has about what these people are up to."

The port authority board, which has consistently faced protesters up until its last meeting in October, has been on hiatus as port officials work toward finalizing a strategic business plan, expected to be unveiled sometime this spring. In late 2018, the port authority board set its first budget, outlining funding for economic development planning, operating expenses and reserves for future use.

Seed questioned why the port authority got its full ask amid a tight budget year while other programs didn't.

"In a year when they're saying they don't have money to do some of the essential things that they should be doing, and yet they have $1.5 million more to give to build an inland port that the public doesn't want," Seed said. "It's problematic."

House Majority Leader Francis Gibson, R-Mapleton, sponsor of HB347, a bill he negotiated with city leaders to change the makeup of the port authority's board and its tax and land use power, said Monday the funding that will be attached to his bill "creates a revenue stream" needed to help the port authority complete its work.

"It's for environmental impact studies, the strategic business plan, it's all of those things that are being created for the port," he said. "It's laying the groundwork for the port's success."

Gibson said legislative leaders prioritized the funds, despite it being a tight budget year, "because we believe it has the potential to be a major economic driver for the state of Utah."

"We want to make sure it has the funds it needs to be able to create that foundation," Gibson said. "So yes, it's a priority."

Gibson's bill is now awaiting action in the Senate, expected to pass before the Utah Legislature adjourns Thursday night.

Another bill, Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla's SB112 — which seeks to create and fund a "community enhancement program" aimed at addressing the impacts of an inland port to surrounding communities — cleared another hurdle Monday after the House Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee voted 6-1 to advance it to the House floor.

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