SALT LAKE CITY — Utah cast the deciding vote to end Prohibition, but also decided to control the sale and supply of alcohol.
In the decades since that critical vote, it has proven to be a financial windfall for state government. Utah makes more than a half-billion dollars in sales from state-run liquor stores.
"We were able to generate almost $580 million in revenue," Tiffany Clason, the executive director of the DABS, said in a recent interview with FOX 13 News. "Almost $236 million of that we were able to turn back to state and local programs. Programs that increase public safety, they fund roads, ultimately it helps keep taxes low for all Utahns whether or not they drink alcohol."
Liquor in Utah is sold at cost plus an 88.5% markup. That's in statute. The money generated from alcohol sales goes into five buckets:
- 0.6% is earmarked for Parents Empowered, the state's underage drinking prevention campaign
- 1.695% is allocated to the Utah Dept. of Public Safety for drunk driving prevention and other alcohol harm reduction efforts
- 10% is earmarked for the Uniform School Fund, which helps provide free or reduced cost lunches for children in need
- 0.5% goes to substance use disorder treatment services, a new allocation this year by the legislature as part of a deal struck with Governor Spencer Cox, who sought funding for homeless and behavioral health services
- The rest goes to the state's general fund
Last year, Clason said, the DABS turned over $60 million to the school lunch fund. It is a separate issue than school lunch debt (where Utah students have racked up a stunning $2.8 million in owed money), said Neil Rickard, the child nutrition advocate for Utahns Against Hunger.
"Roughly one in three students in the Utah school system are qualifying for free and reduced meals currently," Rickard told FOX 13 News.
It is the general fund that gets the vast majority of money the DABS makes.
"It just gives us flexibility to try to take care of everything like we do," said Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, who is tasked by the Senate Republican majority in the Utah State Legislature with running liquor legislation and is also the Senate budget chief.
In light of the student lunch debt problem, some lawmakers have attempted to expand the free or reduced price lunches. This year, reacting to FOX 13 News reporting on the subject, Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Provo, attempted to bring a bill and seek $4 million in fiscal appropriations for it.
Neither went anywhere on Utah's Capitol Hill in the face of regular legislative budget battles. House and Senate budget leaders noted it was bleaker budget year that saw a lot of funding priorities reduced or cut, with lawmakers worried about a lapse in federal pandemic money and economic headwinds to come.
"It's a priorities issue. I don’t think I would say anybody in the legislature is completely and totally hostile to it, but there are varying degrees of acceptance," Rickard said of attempts to expand the school lunch fund.
Sen. Stevenson pointed out the bill originated in the House and never actually made it to the Senate. Still, he told FOX 13 News he was willing to consider the idea.
"The answer to your question, is yes. That’s what the budgeting is, is a re-prioritization," he said. "But I think we need to go and look hard at that."
