Seal of Utah Utah

Utah has a statutory limit on appropriations under Utah Code, Title 63J, Chapter 3, Part 2, Sections 201-206. The appropriations limit was enacted in 1988 by the legislature establishes a state appropriations limit for each fiscal year beginning after June 30, 1988 (end of FY 1988). It limits the annual legislative appropriations for “this state, its agencies, departments, and institutions” to the sum of inflation plus population growth. It includes an adjustment for the transfer of programs to or from a different unit of government. It can be overridden by a declaration of fiscal emergency with a 2/3 supermajority approval by the legislature temporarily and excess funding for a fiscal emergency still applies to future limitations unless overridden by a popular vote.

The limit does, however, have numerous exemptions. Exemptions include money from either federal or local governments, debt service, money from the sale of fixed assets, expenditures of gifts received from specific purposes, transfers to the budget reserve account, and one-time capital project costs.

 
The base year represents the year the hypothetical Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) would have been enacted. Selecting a base year changes how the state’s TABOR is calculated because the annual growth rates of inflation and population change depending on when TABOR is enacted.
  • Year Inflation-adjusted Actual Spending
    1992 5,327,540,000
    1993 5,505,500,000
    1994 5,877,200,000
    1995 6,158,080,000
    1996 6,189,310,000
    1997 6,780,350,000
    1998 8,097,230,000
    1999 7,633,750,000
    2000 7,443,000,000
    2001 8,542,460,000
    2002 8,222,400,000
    2003 7,894,590,000
    2004 7,932,300,000
    2005 8,307,180,000
    2006 8,323,840,000
    2007 9,517,880,000
    2008 10,584,000,000
    2009 10,401,160,000
    2010 10,699,290,000
    2011 10,475,350,000
    2012 9,304,420,000
    2013 9,575,970,000
    2014 9,468,830,000
    2015 10,212,210,000
    2016 10,865,880,000
    2017 11,037,780,000
    2018 11,190,950,000
    2019 12,814,880,000
    2020 13,857,000,000
*All spending figures are in inflation-adjusted 2020 dollars.