2020 Election Issues Guide

American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner formulated the Ecological Systems Theory to explain how the inherent qualities of children and their environments interact to influence how they grow and develop.

As Utah grapples with the effects of the coronavirus and COVID-19, this election year challenges us all to think bigger, broader, and longer-term. What lessons must we learn from the public health emergency? What has worked and has not in the actions already taken by state and local authorities? What weaknesses in Utah's economic and social structures were exposed by the pandemic that demand increased attention by Utah's next governor and legislators? What challenges can we now see that we should have addressed years ago to improve our resilience and ability to adapt to emergency circumstances? 

While it is certainly true that the direct health effects of the coronavirus impact older adults the most, it is Utah's children who may bear the most lasting scars. Unable to attend school in person, relying on their parents or guardians to be their "home teachers" in a new sense, we already know that tens of thousands of Utah's children will fall behind in ways that will be difficult to make up. The decisions that our new governor and legislators make in the years to come will determine whether and how much our social and economic gaps expand as a result. 

The public offices on the ballot in November include:

• Governor and Lt. Governor
• Half of the State Senate
• The entire Utah House of Representatives

Our elected officials play a central role in determining whether all Utah's children have the opportunity to achieve their potential. Will they have access to healthcare and education? Will their families enjoy the economic stability they need to thrive? These are all questions that will be answered by Utah's next governor and legislature.

Voices for Utah Children is providing this Election Issues Guide so that candidates for elected office can better understand the challenges facing Utah's children. We are also seeking to encourage public awareness and dialogue about the needs of children during this year's campaigns so that our new governor and legislature will begin their terms of office prepared to enact effective policies to protect their youngest constituents. 

We have divided this Election Issues Guide into five sections:

Kids Count

Health

Juvenile Justice

Early Childhood

Tax & Budget/Economic Performance

The Election Issues Guide can also be downloaded as a 15-page pdf at this link for easier printing. 

Kids Count

Supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, our KIDS COUNT® work aims to provide Utah’s legislators, public officials and child advocates with reliable data, policy recommendations and other tools needed to advance the kinds of sound policies that benefit children and families across the state.

In 2019, Utah held on to its ranking among the top ten in the annual Annie E. Casey Foundation KIDS COUNT® Data Book report, coming in at 7th highest in the nation. We especially shined in the subcategory of "Family and Community," where we ranked #1 thanks to our highest-in-the-nation share of two-parent families and low share of children growing up in high-poverty neighborhoods. We also ranked 4th highest in the subcategory of "Economic Well-Being" thanks to our relatively low share of children in poverty.  

But we failed to make the top ten in the other two subcategories in the KIDS COUNT® rankings, due to the fact that public policy has fallen short in precisely those two areas: education and health care. We barely outperformed the nation for high school graduation (and fell behind after adjusting for demographics). And we fell behind in the share of children with health insurance, especially among Utah's Latino children, who suffer from the highest uninsured rate in the nation. 

All the KIDS COUNT® ranking details are viewable on the chart and links below. 

Terry Haven
Deputy Director
Voices for Utah Children

More Information:

Our Kids Count Homepage

2019 Kids Count Data Book

Measures of Well-Being in Utah, 2019

Talking Kids Tour 2019 - A Supplement to the 2019 Utah KIDS COUNT Data Book

Health

Every Utah child deserves the opportunity to reach their full potential, no matter where their family comes from or where they live in our state. No family should be denied care or afraid to seek the care they need. We must ensure that all Utah parents and kids have affordable health coverage and care. That is why Voices for Utah Children spearheads the 100% Kids Coverage Campaign, so that all children in Utah have insurance. Together we can promote healthy communities where all Utah families thrive.

All Utah children, families, and communities should have access to:

• Pre-natal care and insurance, including mental health support for caregivers;
• Continuous, comprehensive health coverage and care for all Utah kids;
• Healthy communities and environments, including access to healthy food, clean drinking water and clean air.

To learn more about the 100% Kids Coverage Campaign visit: https://utahchildren.org/issues/100-kids-covered

Contact Jessie Mandle or Ciriac Alvarez Valle

More Information:

What Does the Coronavirus Mean for Families’ Access to Health Care?

New Report Finds Number of Uninsured Latino Children in Utah on the Rise

Legislature funds 12-month continuous eligibility for children on Medicaid age 0-5 to address our 44th place kids coverage ranking

Voices for Utah Children Opposes New Trump Administration Medicaid Block Grant Guidance

Voices for Utah Children opposes Trump Administration Public Charge Rule

Voices for Utah Children celebrates Utah Medicaid Expansion

Juvenile Justice

Voices for Utah Children believes in a youth-centered juvenile justice system that meets the needs of the children involved in it, while producing positive outcomes for Utah families and protecting community safety. We are committed to the belief that children should be nurtured, educated and given an equitable chance at success in life. That means allowing young people to make mistakes, learn from them, develop accountability to themselves and their communities, and work through their own unique challenges as they prepare for their lives as adults.

Voices for Utah Children advocates for juvenile justice system that is fair, effective and equitable.  Such a system creates positive outcomes for different children, using evidence-based and culturally-competent programs, that meets the needs of children from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, races, ethnicities, physical and mental abilities, religious paths and belief systems, and sexual orientations and gender identities. We'll know that Utah has a fair, effective and equitable system when the youth themselves, their families and their communities, believe that the system is working in their best interest. In addition, we will see existing disparities between children of different races - in terms of contact with the system, the seriousness of dispositions, and the barriers to exiting the system quickly - disappear. 

While we actively engage in policy analysis and advocacy directed at the policymakers who are able to remore structural barriers to youth success, we also work to empower advocates and community members alike, arming people with information that allows them to advocate for the young people in their lives who may be system-involved or at risk for system involvement. 

More Information:

April 6, 2020 COVID-19 Update on Utah's Juvenile Justice System in: English, Spanish

April 27, 2020 COVID-19 Update on Utah's Juvenle Justice System in: English, Spanish (Part 1 & Part 2)

Good News for Juvenile Justice Reformers, from the 2019 Legislative Session 

Report: Utah children face barriers to accessing defense attorneys 

Let's End Racial Disparities in Utah's Juvenile Justice System 

Anna Thomas, MPA
Senior Policy Analyst
Voices for Utah Children

Early Childhood

The early years in a child’s life are critically important in terms of social, emotional and cognitive development. All children deserve to start their lives with a real chance to succeed and be happy later in life, but not all children have access to the things that set them up for that kind of future. We believe that when the wellbeing of young children is at the center of public policy and community investment, our entire state does better.

That is why Voices for Utah Children focuses on promoting targeted investments in early childhood care and education, structured to meet the unique needs (and build on the unique strengths) of Utah's many diverse communities. We believe it is possible to build an early childhood system in Utah that supports families with young children by making sure they have access to affordable and appropriate options for their children’s early care and learning—whether children spend their days at home, in formal child care, at public school, or in the care of trusted family and friends. 

Anna Thomas, MPA
Senior Policy Analyst
Voices for Utah Children

 More Information:

There’s No “Re-Opening” Utah Without More Child Care

National Orgs Call for Emergency Child Care Sector Relief

Three Things Utah Can Do to Ensure Right-Sized Access to Full-Day Kindergarten

Kinship Care Families Need Our Support

Tax & Budget/Economic Performance

Tax and Budget: Every year, Utah's taxes (income, sales, gas, and property taxes) generate revenues that government then expends in ways that profoundly affect families and communities. The fiscal choices Utah makes — such as whether to invest in Utah's future or give in to the temptation to cut taxes below their current overall low level — will make a critical difference in the lives of the next generation of Utahns. If we make the best choices, we can help foster opportunity for all our children and lay the foundations for Utah's future growth and prosperity.

Last year the Utah State Tax Commission and the Utah Foundation both published research showing that taxes in Utah are the lowest that they have been in 30-50 years, following repeated rounds of tax cutting. Tax cutting is undoubtedly popular, especially in election years, but is it always wise? At some point we need to ask ourselves a difficult question: Is the current generation of Utahns doing our part, as earlier generations did, to set aside sufficient resources every year to invest in our children, in our future, in the foundations of tomorrow’s prosperity and quality of life? And more immediately and specifically, given the Coronavirus Recession's expected impacts on the Utah state budget, should we reconsider the 2018 election-year decision to reduce our income tax rate from 5% to 4.95%, a $50 million tax cut that mostly benefitted high-income households? 

Voices for Utah Children's fiscal policy program works to ensure that we invest sufficient resources to ensure that our kids get world-class education and health care as well as special support for children most in need.

At the same time, we also work to ensure that public revenues are generated in ways that are fair. No family should be taxed into poverty as the price of educating their children. Currently, while we've moved in a better direction over the past 25 years, Utah does tax about 100,000 families into or deeper into poverty every year. In addition, the lowest-income Utahns pay a higher overall tax rate (7.5%) than those with the highest incomes (who pay 6.7% of their incomes in state and local taxes). That's one of the reasons why Voices for Utah Children supports making Utah the 30th state in the nation with our own Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), starting with Utahns working their way out of intergenerational poverty. 

Economic Performance: Voices for Utah Children examines and reports on Utah's economic performance from the perspective of how low- and moderate-income Utahns experience the economy -- some examples appear in the links below.  

Matthew Weinstein, MPP
State Priorities Partnership Director
Voices for Utah Children

More Information:

Why Utah Should Invest In Our Future, Not Tax Cuts

Voices for Utah Children's Assessment of the Positive and Negative Aspects of the December 2019 Tax Restructuring Effort

Why Should Utah Become the 30th State with Our Own Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)?

The History of Tax Incidence in Utah 1995-2018   

Inequality in Utah Compared to Other States and the Nation

Utah Working Families Economic Performance Benchmarking Project: Utah vs. Idaho

Voices for Utah Children Public Opinion Survey

The Utah Legislature is deciding right now what to do with Utah's tax revenues for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2020. The biggest question is: Should they cut taxes or invest in Utah’s future? Please read the main arguments on either side and click on the button below that you agree with the most….​

The Arguments for Cutting Taxes	The Arguments for Investing in Utah’s Future
1) Any state budget surplus belongs to the taxpayers, so it should be returned to us. 2) Lower income tax rates will make the state more competitive and help the economy grow faster. 3) Lower taxes on businesses will make the state more competitive and help the economy grow faster.	1) According to Utah Tax Commission data, Utah’s taxes are already the lowest they have been since the 1960s (adding up all state and local taxes as a percent of incomes). 2) Utah has fallen behind on investing in critical needs like education, infrastructure, and clean air. 3) If we make wise up-front investments in these areas today, we and especially our children will reap the gains tomorrow.

Survey results are clear: Utahns overwhelmingly prefer investing in our future over tax cuts: 

But is the Legislature listening?

BROAD COALITION CALLS FOR INVESTMENT IN UTAH’S FUTURE

“Taxes are low already – the economy is good – now is not the time for even more tax cuts”

Salt Lake City – On Thursday, February 20, 2020 on the steps of the Utah Capitol, a broad and diverse coalition of Utah advocates for the poor, for persons with disabilities, for education, health care, clean air, and for a variety of other popular Utah priorities held a press conference calling on the Utah Legislature to avoid cutting taxes until it has developed a comprehensive plan to address Utahns’ top concerns by investing in Utah’s future.

Participants in the press conference included (in alphabetical order):

• Action Utah
• American Academy of Pediatrics, Utah Chapter
• Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City
• Center for Biological Diversity
• Coalition of Religious Communities
• Community Action Partnership of Utah
• Crossroads Urban Center
• HEAL Utah – Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah
• Legislative Coalition for People with Disabilities
• Sierra Club Utah Chapter
• Utah Citizens Counsel
• Utah Education Association
• Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment
• Utahns Against Hunger
• Voices for Utah Children

The effort was inspired in part by a column in the Deseret News by Zions Bank CEO Scott Anderson, who wrote,

I hope the theme of the session that starts next Monday will be, ‘Investing in Utah’s future.’ Nothing is more important than preparing for, and investing in, the rapid growth that is occurring in Utah…. Utah taxes are relatively low — lower now than in many years. Investments in education, clean air and infrastructure will produce good jobs and preserve Utah’s strong economy.

The advocates pointed out that, according to recent reports from the Utah State Tax Commission and the Utah Foundation, taxes in Utah are the lowest that they have been in decades, following repeated rounds of tax cutting. “We understand that tax cuts are popular, but we’ve reached the point where we have to ask: Is the current generation of Utahns doing our part, as earlier generations did, to set aside sufficient resources every year to invest in our children, in our future, in the foundations of tomorrow’s prosperity and quality of life?” said Matthew Weinstein of Voices for Utah Children.

The advocates laid out a positive vision of how all Utahns would benefit from enhanced investment in our state:  

Jean Hill, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City: “As an active participant in many of the efforts to end homelessness in Utah, the Diocese of Salt Lake City has seen first-hand the impacts of rapidly rising rents and dwindling stocks of affordable housing.  If we truly want to render episodes of homelessness brief, rare and non-recurring, we must invest in housing and supportive services for those on the brink or already experiencing homelessness.”

Jonny Vasic, Executive Director, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment: "Salt Lake County continues to be ranked in the top 10 as having the worse air pollution in the country, in both 24-hour particulate matter and in ozone. This leads to a long list of health issues and even premature death.  We cannot pass this problem off to the next generation. There are solutions, but it starts with awareness and needs the combined effort of the community with strong political will from our leaders.”

Bill Tibbitts, Crossroads Urban Center: “Utahns want our leaders to improve housing affordability and reduce the number of children and adults who spend time in shelters or sleeping in cars.  We not going to solve these big problems if we put off doing something about them until tomorrow.”

Dr. William Cosgrove, American Academy of Pediatrics, Utah Chapter: “The Utah Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics represents more than 700 Utah Pediatric providers. We are dedicated to the health, safety and wellbeing of all Utah children. Utah’s children comprise 30% of Utah’s population, but those children are 100% of Utah’s future. In order to achieve Utah’s best future, we must invest in the physical and emotional health of our children. We, as a community, are urging our leaders to provide each child access to:

• clean air, clean water, and safe food
• safe living arrangements
• adequate time with loving and attentive parents
• exposure to rich language and books as infants and toddlers
• excellent early childhood care and education to ensure they are ready for kindergarten
• teachers who are well-trained, adequately compensated, and have the resources they need
• safe, violence-free, neighborhoods to play and learn in

A young family cannot, by themselves, provide these things to their children. They need citizens in their communities and tax resources collected by the government to be invested into critical services and resources for the benefit of children. Historically, Utah has under-funded pre-schools and K-12 schools which has slowed the development and education of a generation of children. There is no better investment opportunity, nor better return-on-investment, than fully funding the education of Utah’s children.”

Clint J. Cottam, MPA, Executive Director, Community Action Partnership of Utah: “Community Action Agencies in Utah recently asked thousands of individuals to identify barriers preventing households and communities from achieving their full potential. Every assessment, whether in predominantly urban or rural regions, cited housing as the investment most lacking throughout Utah. Stories were shared of Utahns becoming sick from mold, experiencing homelessness, forgoing basic needs like medicine and medical equipment, turning down employment, or extending their commutes due to housing quality, availability, and/or affordability.  Investments in increasing the quality, availability and affordability in the state will improve health outcomes and continue to keep Utah’s economy strong.”

Deeda Seed, Senior Utah Field Campaigner, Center for Biological Diversity: “This is not the time for tax cuts. The enormous growth we’re experiencing in Utah comes with many problems including the critical lack of affordable housing, polluted air, and the loss of open space.  Addressing these problems costs money, whether its building affordable housing, taking steps to clean up our air, or preserving open space. Our tax dollars should be used to support a sustainable healthy future for all Utahns and to address the impacts of growth.”

Utah Education Association President Heidi Matthews: “The growing Utah economy provides an ideal opportunity to make long-needed investments in the promise of a quality education for every Utah student. Rather than cutting taxes, we should be building futures.”

Cheryll May, Steering Committee Member, Utah Citizens Counsel: “The Utah Citizens Counsel maintains that every Utah child should have an equal opportunity for a healthy and productive life. Yet thousands of children from disadvantaged backgrounds enter kindergarten years behind their peers in basic knowledge and skills. High quality early-childhood education programs can greatly mitigate this deficit. Few Utah children currently have access to these programs. Extensive research shows that investments in such programs are cost effective. State programs supporting quality early education have been shown to save money in later years on remedial education, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, juvenile justice and corrections.”

Gina Cornia, Executive Director, Utahns Against Hunger: “Utah policy makers have always prided themselves on doing what is best for Utah families. Utahns Against Hunger urges them to embrace this perspective and reflect on how the important work they do during the session will impact the most vulnerable Utahns. Moving forward, we believe, that tax policy and budget plans should reflect a concern and a priority for those who too often go without or wait too long to for their situations to matter.”

Carrie Butler, Policy Director, Action Utah: “We at Action Utah believe that we are fortunate to live in a state rich with environmental and economic resources, and we support investment into the future for all Utahns. We encourage work on  policies that matter most to a majority of Utahns, including funding for programs that assist our most vulnerable populations, funding for education, mechanisms that help reduce cost and expand access to healthcare, and programs that improve our air quality. We encourage the legislature to carefully consider these issues and prioritize funding them in responsible ways.”   

Janet Wade, Legislative Coalition for People with Disabilities: “Individuals with disabilities and their families are often forgotten by policymakers when considering tax reform and budgets, but people with disabilities make up approximately 12% of the population of Utah and are an important part of the diversity in our state.  Individuals with disabilities and their families require ongoing services and supports to effectively participate in our communities, schools, and workplaces. The Legislative Coalition for People with Disabilities (LCPD) believes that legislators have an ethical obligation to protect and serve this vulnerable and overlooked population, and we strongly urge the Utah Legislature to develop a long-term funding strategy to support Utahans with disabilities and their families, including those currently on the “waiting list” for DSPD services.”

Taken together, the advocates’ message amounts to a vision of a healthier, wealthier, better educated and more prosperous Utah in the future – if our leaders can resist the election-year temptation to cut taxes and avoid the public revenues losses that leave us unable to make the critically needed investments today that will pay off many times over in the future.

Finally, the advocates expressed gratitude for the hard work and sacrifice of Utah legislators, who willingly give of their time and energies in service to the people of Utah, grappling with the most difficult policy choices and budget tradeoffs, often without public understanding or appreciation. The advocates called on all Utahns to consider the example of earlier generations that sacrificed so that we could have a better state today.

This press release is also available as a downloadable pdf here. 

This event was recorded and can be viewed at 

Media coverage links: 

• Deseret News: https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/2/20/21145390/tax-cut-revenue-projects-thriving-economy-but-persistent-funding-imbalance-education-sales-taxes 
• Salt Lake Tribune: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/02/20/utah-legislature-has/ 
• Fox 13 TV: https://www.fox13now.com/tax-cut-the-utah-state-legislature-contemplates-budget-after-citizen-referendum
• Tribune op-ed: https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/02/22/matthew-weinstein/

Utah Tax Incidence History 1995 - 2018

Utah is in the midst of the most intense debate over taxes that our state has seen in many years. In December the Legislature passed a major tax restructuring package following a year of public hearings and legislative deliberations. Days later, citizens from across the political spectrum filed a petition to roll back the new law. Media reports are that citizens around the state are collecting tens of thousands of signatures to bring the new law before the voters in a referendum this November.

In the midst of this very active and engaging public debate, which will likely continue whatever the outcome of the petition-gathering effort, it is worth asking how the legislation that was passed fits into the history of Utah's taxes over the last several decades. Have Utah's taxes been going up or down, and for whom? Which income groups have been winners and losers in recent decades? Did the new legislation continue past trends or shift things in a new direction?

During the fall semester of 2020, two economics department undergraduate students from the University of Utah, Nelson Lotz and Gabriella Rebol, researched this question by reviewing the results of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy's report series Who Pays: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, which was published in 2018, 2015, 2013, 2009, 2003, and 1995. Each of the reports looks at how much Utahns at each income level pay in taxes as a share of their income. The report includes all taxes paid at the state and local level, including sales, excise (including the gas tax), property, and income taxes,  The population is broken up into quintiles by income level, and the top 20% of earners are broken down even further. The table below shows the income levels for each of the income groups from the most recent year of ITEP’s data, 2018:

Source: Who Pays? 6th edition 2018 Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy

 The Tableau charts below show the average tax rate for each of the income groups for each of the three major types of tax and for all Utah state and local taxes combined for each year of results.  The chart allows the viewer to show each year's results separately or together on the same chart so that it is easier to see what direction the trend is moving in for each successive year of data.

Discussion of Results

TOTAL INCLUDING ALL STATE AND LOCAL TAXES

Beginning with the results for the total of all state and local taxes, the data from ITEP show that from 1995 to 2018, Utah moved toward a more equitable tax system. In 1995, Utah’s tax system fit the classic definition of a regressive tax structure, with the overall effective tax rate including all state and local taxes being highest for the lowest income quintile at 12% of income and then falling steadily from there so that the highest income 1% of taxpayers paid the lowest tax rate of any income group, just 7.8% of their incomes. By 2018, however, the lowest income fifth of Utahns saw their overall tax rate fall to 7.5%, and the tax rate rose for each successively higher income level to 7.9% for the second quintile, then 8.2% for the middle quintile, and then 8.8% for the fourth quintile, those earning between $64,000 and $104,000. However, that 8.8% rate for the fourth quintile is the highest tax rate paid by any income group, and the tax rate falls sharply for higher incomes, reaching a low of 6.7% for the wealthiest 1% of tax filers, the lowest rate for any Utah income group.

Additionally, all of the quintiles have seen a substantial reduction in the total percentage of income paid in taxes from 1995 to 2018. This finding is consistent with research from the Utah State Tax Commission and the Utah Foundation finding that Utah has steadily reduced its overall level of taxation in recent decades.

Here is the percentage and dollar savings for each income group from the 1995-2018 overall tax reduction:

Thus, we can see that the greatest percent-of-income tax reduction over the time period 1995-2018 went to the lowest-income Utahns, while the largest tax cut in dollar terms went to the wealthiest. The total aggregate annual tax cut by 2018 added up to $2.38 billion. In other words, if Utahns had paid 1995 tax rates on their 2018 incomes, Utah state and local governments would have received an additional $2.38 billion in revenue.  

INCOME TAX

Income tax as a share of personal income has declined for Utahns of all income groups since 1995. The income tax remains the state's only non-regressive tax, lining up with Utah's top-heavy income distribution (though not as top-heavy as the nation's). Three-fifths of all personal income taxes are paid by the top one-fifth of taxpayers, which lines up with the state's income distribution, in which three-fifths of all income is earned by the top one-fifth of earners, according to Tax Commission data. 

PROPERTY TAX

For all income groups, property tax has dropped as a percent of income in Utah since 1995. As a percent of income, the tax is still heaviest on the lowest earning quintile. However, the tax no longer retains its entirely regressive structure. The second quintile of income earners in the state now pay the least in property taxes as a share of their personal income compared to other income groups. 

SALES & EXCISE TAXES

From 1995 to 2018, all of Utah’s income groups have seen a reduction in sales and excise taxes (mainly the gas tax) as a percentage of income. The lowest and second quintile have seen the biggest reduction in sales taxes with the lowest quintile’s sales taxes dropping from 7.5% of income in 1995 to 5.1% in 2018. In Utah, sales and excise taxes have a clear regressive tax structure with lowest quintile paying the highest rate and each successive quintile paying less.

 The December 2019 Tax Restructuring: Consistent with the 1995-2018 Tax Cutting Trend

To return to the question raised above: Is the December 2019 legislative action embodied in SB 2001 consistent with the 1995-2018 tax cutting trend or a break with tradition? The answer is clearly that it continues the tax cutting trend, as the legislation is projected to reduce tax levels for every income group, as shown in this chart: 

On the positive side, it is noteworthy that the largest percent-of-income tax cut in the December 2019 package goes to the lowest-income quintile of Utahns -- half a percentage point, from 7.5% of income to 7% of income. (This projection is based on the assumption that all low-income Utahns file for the new Grocery Tax Credit (GTC). If only 75% of low-income Utahns file for the GTC (the same percentage of eligible lower-income Utahns that file for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)), then we project that the overall tax rate for the lowest-income quintile of Utahns drops to 7.2%, which is still the largest percent-of-income tax cut for any income group.)  

On the negative side (from the perspective of wanting to reduce Utah’s tax regressivity while still generating sufficient public resources to invest in Utah's next generation), it must also be noted that SB2001's largest tax cut in dollar terms goes to the top quintile of Utah earners – nearly half of the entire net in-state tax cut, or about $100 million out of the total net in-state tax cut estimated by the Legislature at $208 million -- with about $60 million of that $100 million going to the top 1% of Utahns, those earning over about half a million dollars a year. This works out to an average tax cut of $3,300 per household for the top 1%, compared to an average tax cut of about $80 per household for the lowest-income quintile of Utahns, if they file for the new Grocery Tax Credit (low-income Utahns who don't file for the new GTC will end up paying about $100 per household more each year in taxes). 

THIS ITEM IS AVAILABLE AS A DOWNLOADABLE AND PRINTABLE PDF FILE HERE. 

Last night, December 12, 2019, the Utah Legislature passed a tax restructuring package in a special legislative session.

Voices for Utah Children was very involved in this process over the course of the year. We attended the Tax Restructuring and Equalization Task Force (TRETF) hearings, generated public comment, released our position paper in September, and later that month participated in a poverty advocates' coalition letter signed by 27 non-profits that work with and advocate for lower-income Utahns. We published two op-eds on September 14 and November 26 as well as numerous blog and Facebook posts and tweets. We also worked directly with Task Force members to evaluate and shape the Task Force proposals.

From the start, we focused on two questions:

1. Does the tax proposal reduce the regressivity in Utah's tax system so that we are taxing fewer Utah families into - or deeper into - poverty?  Currently, Utah's overall tax system is regressive, in the sense that lower- and middle-income Utahns pay a higher overall tax rate than upper-income Utahns.
2. Does the tax proposal enable Utah to invest more in the long run in Utah's children -- their education, their health, their future prospects to become productive members of their communities and of our state? The State Tax Commission and the Utah Foundation have both published research this year documenting that our overall level of taxation stands at a multi-decade low, raising the question of whether the current generation of Utahns is doing our part, as earlier generations did, to set aside sufficient resources every year to invest in our children. As the poverty advocates' coalition letter detailed, our decades of tax cutting have left Utah with billions of dollars in urgent unmet needs in numerous areas.

So how did the final bill passed last night stack up according to these criteria?

Will it reduce regressivity?

While the idea of bringing back the full sales tax on food was not a part of our proposals, and in fact we proposed eliminating the sales tax on food entirely, our analysis of the near-final version of the bill found that, overall, it will reduce the impact of Utah's taxes for lower-income Utahns from 7.5% of their incomes to 7%, or by about $100 per year, IF they file for the new Grocery Tax Credit (GTC).

The Legislature’s analysts estimate that 30,000-50,000 low-income Utah households do not file taxes every year, because their incomes fall below the mandatory minimum.  Thus, in order to maximize the number of households who file for the credit, Voices for Utah Children proposed, fought hard for, and, on the final day, won inclusion in the package of $500,000 to market the new tax credit to its target population. We also recommended that the bill be amended to add an automatic inflation adjustment for the GTC so that it would not lose its value over time, but that was not included in the bill.

Grocery Tax Credits have considerable drawbacks (mainly that they require the filing of paperwork to obtain them) and vary greatly among the half-dozen states that have them. But the one passed last night will likely be the most generous and accessible one in the nation for lower-income households, based on the amount of the credit, its eligibility rules, and the commitment to invest substantial resources to publicize it.

The bill also makes Utah the 30th state with our own Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), amounting to 10% of the federal credit and fully refundable, aimed at the 25,000 working families in Utah's intergenerational poverty (IGP) cohort. The inclusion of this provision – which was pulled from the bill for several very tense hours Thursday afternoon – is a credit to the persistence of Rep. Robert Spendlove, the sponsor of HB 103, chair of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee, and member of the TRETF.  This is something that many Utahns have sought for decades, and Voices for Utah Children is grateful to the dozens of partnering organizations that have advocated for it alongside us in recent years.

Will it invest more in children?

Unfortunately, the answer here is no. The Governor and Legislature gave in to the election-year temptation to boast about a big tax cut. The bill reduces income taxes by over $600 million and replaces less than $500 million of that revenue with new sales taxes, leaving the state with $160 million less revenue every year going forward to invest in Utah's children.

Voices for Utah Children had strongly advised against using the state's current temporary fiscal surplus to permanently reduce revenues. We see this as a missed opportunity to act now for the state's long-term future, especially given that the shift from income taxes to sales taxes brings in tens of millions of new dollars from non-Utahns, which would have made it possible to offer an in-state tax cut while enhancing revenues or at least holding them steady.  

Moreover, the shift from the faster-growing income tax to the slower-growing gas and grocery sales tax raises the question of whether public revenues will keep up with our fast-growing economy and population in the years to come, a point noted by Rep. Tim Quinn at the final TRETF meeting this past Monday. On the positive side, the bill does expand the sales tax base to some services and closes some outdated sales tax exemptions, which are small but important steps in the right direction.  

It is also noteworthy that, because of the income tax rate reduction from 4.95% to 4.66%, about half of the overall net in-state tax cut of about $200 million annually goes to the top quintile of Utahns, those making over about $120,000 per year, and most of that half goes to the top 1% of Utah households, those earning over about $590,000. 

As detailed in the poverty advocates’ coalition letter, our state suffers from chronic revenue shortages in numerous areas due to our decades of tax cutting, and these shortages disproportionately impact lower-income households. They also keep Utah from getting out ahead of our next-generation challenges, such as closing the majority-minority gaps that are worsening over time, even as our non-white communities are growing and becoming a more integral part of every region of Utah. 

Thus, it is clear that a major challenge remains before Voices for Utah Children and other advocates in the years to come to make the case to the public and policymakers that it is worth investing more in our children, not less.  

In-State vs Out-of-State Effects: The Key to Tax Restructuring Success?

If someone told you that the key to the success of the Utah Tax Restructuring and Equalization Task Force may well be found in an examination of the in-state vs out-of-state effects of the current draft proposal, your eyes would probably glaze over and you might suddenly recall a dentist appointment that you had forgotten. 

But wait!  Please tell the dentist you’ll reschedule and take a few minutes to read on.

Kansas: Tax Cuts That Went Too Far

The greatest danger for Utah’s future in the current debate is that fans of anti-tax/anti-government Pied Piper Grover Norquist and former Kansas Governor Sam Brownback will try to take advantage of the political pressures of the coming election year to follow in the footsteps of Kansas and include in the package a large revenue reduction. After all, tax cuts are always popular, and Utah has been giving in to that temptation for years.

Yet we know what an economic disappointment those tax cuts were in Kansas (it turns out that underinvesting in education and infrastructure does not actually help grow the economy), leading to devastating losses in subsequent elections for the plan’s proponents. The suddenly more moderate (while still Republican) Kansas legislature subsequently rolled back the tax cuts (though the voter backlash went on, electing a Democratic Governor last year in that very red state).

Apparently, it is possible to have too much of a good thing, even when it comes to tax cuts.

Successive rounds of tax cuts have left Utah with our lowest tax levels in decades, according to recent data from both the Utah Foundation and the Utah State Tax Commission. According to the Utah Foundation, the tax cuts of the last two decades have moved us from having the 6^th highest taxes in the nation to #31 (even as we continue to have the nation’s highest percentage of children to educate). The Tax Foundation says that today we rank in the top 10 states for our business tax climate. By all accounts, our economy is booming and generating all the jobs we need, with an unemployment rate currently measured at 2.7%. So is it wise at this stage to use our temporary budget surplus to make even more permanent cuts to state revenues? Such additional tax cuts seem likely to have one of two possible outcomes, neither very desirable: Either they could rev our job-creating engine to the point that we’re creating enough new jobs not just for the next generation of Utahns but for hundreds of thousands of Californians to move here as well, or they could undermine the educational and infrastructural foundations of our long-term economic prosperity, as was the case in Kansas.  Indeed, the tax cuts of recent decades have already crippled our ability to invest in education, infrastructure, air quality, public health, poverty prevention, and so many other areas where we have urgent unmet needs.

Should We Apply the Solutions of the Past to the Challenges of Today?

Certainly there is a strong case to be made that the tax cuts of recent decades helped Utah achieve our current economic success. Perhaps our most significant economic achievement of the last 20 years is that Utah has moved from being a low-wage state to middle-wage status, based on our rank for median hourly wage over the last two decades (#39 in 2006 vs. #27 last year). But rather than applying the solutions of the past to the challenges of today, the progress we've made puts us in a new position and allows us to ask a new question: Now that we have achieved middle-wage status, how can we, in the decades to come, follow in the footsteps of states like Colorado and Minnesota and move toward becoming a high-wage state?

Utah Has Fallen Behind on Educational Attainment

The secret to those states’ success lies in their higher levels of educational attainment.  But right now Utah is behind on educational attainment. It is well-known that our teacher attrition rates are too high and so are our class sizes. But it is less well-known that, adjusted for demographics, our high school graduation rate is also behind the national average. In other words, for example, if you are White or Latino in Utah, you are less likely to graduate high school than Whites or Latinos nationally. At the college level, we have fallen behind national trends for BA/BS+ attainment among our younger generation, with only 34% of Utahns ages 25-34 having graduated college compared to 36% nationally, according to the latest 2018 Census data.

Utah’s Next Great Challenge: Our Growing Majority-Minority Gaps

Moreover, Utah is in the midst of a demographic transformation that is enriching our state immeasurably but also bringing majority-minority gaps of a type and at a scale that our state has not had to confront in the past. Education Week magazine recently ranked Utah among the worst 10 states for our growing educational achievement gap between haves and have-nots. Now is the time to make the upfront investments that will help us avoid going the way of other states that failed to close those gaps when they had the chance to do so in the most cost-effective manner.

While there is little doubt that Utah does more with less better than any other state, we will not close our growing gaps and raise our educational attainment as long as we are stuck in last place for per-pupil investment. The unfortunate reality remains that our very real economic progress of recent decades has not resulted in increased investment in education.  Rather, our total inflation-adjusted per-student state + local K-12 education revenues remained below pre-recession levels last year. 

In-State vs. Out-of-State Effects

If we can agree that there could be real downsides to making additional cuts to state revenues in the proposed tax restructuring package, then what does this have to do with in-state vs. out-of-state effects of the proposed tax changes, and how could understanding those effects potentially save the package?

The answer is that the draft package’s roughly $600 million shift of revenues from income taxes to sales taxes also brings with it a less-noticed shift of about $100 million from in-state payers (aka Utahns) to out-of-state payers (non-Utahns). This is because a much higher share of the sales tax than of the income tax is paid by non-Utahns – about 25% of all sales tax revenues (though a much higher 40% for the gas tax and a much lower 5% for the grocery tax since tourists mostly eat prepared foods, which are already fully taxable). (That exact percent varies slightly from state to state. The state of Texas, for example, estimates that 21% of their sales tax is paid by non-Texans. while Minnesota estimates 23% for their sales tax.*)

The Implications of $100 Million of New Revenue from Out-of-State

The first implication of this $100 million shift is that the Task Force’s claim of an $80 million tax cut in their draft package actually understates the in-state tax cut (the tax cut for us Utahns) by roughly $100 million. This means that the draft package actually proposes a $180 million tax cut for Utahns -- in a package that costs the state $80 million of revenue annually.

The further implication of this is that the package could very easily be adjusted (simply by changing the proposed income tax rate) to make it revenue neutral overall – and still have a $100 million tax cut for Utahns.

But, building on the discussion above about our urgent unmet needs and chronic revenue shortages, the best implication of this in-state vs out-of-state shift is that this package could achieve one of the holy grails of tax policy – getting non-Utahns to pay for the things we Utahns need (education, infrastructure, etc.) – by using the new out-of-state revenue to get this package out of the red and permit a $100 million revenue enhancement for the state budget without costing Utahns a dime.

The Compromise That Could Carry the Day

But politics is politics, and politicians are politicians, and next year is an election year. Which brings us to the compromise that could potentially save this package: Take that $100 million of new out-of-state money and split it 50-50: Make the package $50 million revenue-positive so we can improve education and infrastructure and use the other $50 million for an in-state tax cut. Which is probably not anyone’s ideal solution, but it just might be the compromise that can carry the day.

* Here are the reports from the Texas and Minnesota state tax agencies that analyze the topic of exporting tax incidence to non-residents:

• Texas -- https://comptroller.texas.gov/transparency/reports/tax-exemptions-and-incidence/ -- see Table 1 on page 47 (p53 of the pdf) which reports that 21% of Texas' $37 billion of sales tax incidence is exported to out-of-state payers.
• Minnesota -- https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/2019-03/%2B2019_tax_incidence_study_Nolinks_0.pdf -- see Table 2-1 on page 26 (page 40 of the pdf) which reports that 23% of Minnesota's sales tax incidence is exported to non-Minnesotans.

Tax Restructuring Process Picks Up Speed 

Last week (October 22, 2019) the Tax Restructuring and Equalization Task Force (TRETF) adopted its co-chairs’ proposal as its working document, passing a motion to produce draft legislation based on it for consideration at the Task Force’s next meeting on November 7^th.    

The chairs’ proposal is a mixed bag. When viewed through the lens of our tax reform position paper, we can say that it offers the potential to make Utah’s tax structure less regressive for most low-income Utahns, which would be welcome, but it also reduces overall public revenues by $79 million through an income tax rate cut that awards most of the total tax reduction to the wealthiest Utahns.

Utah’s current overall tax structure is regressive, in the sense that low- and middle-income Utahns pay 7.5%-8.8% of their incomes in state and local taxes, while the highest income Utahns pay just 6.7%. Under the Task Force co-chairs’ proposal, the tax rate for the lowest income Utahns would be reduced from 7.5% to 7%, at least on paper, but that estimate of a 0.5-percent-of-income reduction for the poor assumes that everyone who is eligible will file for the proposed new grocery tax credit that is intended to offset the regressive impact of the proposed increase in the state sales tax on groceries from 1.75% to 4.85%. We know from real-life experience that a considerable share of low-income Utahns will not file for the credit, mostly because they won’t know about it and because many low-income Utahns are not in the habit of filing tax forms every year because they are not required to do so, since their incomes are below the minimum threshold for mandatory filing. 

The key to making this new proposed grocery tax credit a meaningful offset is to publicize it effectively to lower-income Utahns so that they will know about it and file for it. Right now, unfortunately, Utah gets a failing grade for our meager efforts to publicize the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the closest analog to the proposed new grocery tax credit. The state budget included just $130,000 this year to help lower-income Utahns file for the EITC, which helps explain why our participation rate is estimated by the IRS at only 75% of eligible households, well below the national average of 80%.

Thus, Voices for Utah Children testified before the TRETF last week that Utah needs to increase our investment in publicizing low-income tax credits from a six-figure line item to a seven-figure item. Fortunately, this would be an expenditure with the potential to pay for itself because it will mean more Utahns will file not just for the new proposed grocery tax credit and IGP EITC included in the co-chairs’ proposal (thanks to an amendment offered by Rep. Robert Spendlove), but also for the federal EITC. If Utah were to reach the national average of 80% EITC participation among eligible households, that could result in an additional $30 million of consumer spending by lower-income households, most of which would likely be subject to the state sales tax, the increased revenue from which could well exceed the amount budgeted to publicize the new tax credits.

Voices for Utah Children will continue to press for the TRETF proposal to add a line item setting aside at least $1 million to publicize the new tax credits. Doing so would position Utah to have the most effective grocery tax credit among the handful of states that employ such a credit to try to shield low-income residents from the regressive effects of the sales tax on food. 

Regarding the co-chairs’ proposal’s impact on overall Utah revenues, Voices for Utah Children participated in a coalition letter released last month in which 27 nonprofits serving lower-income Utahns documented a long list of urgent unmet needs that the state has not been able to address due to our chronic shortage of public revenues resulting from decades of tax cutting. Unfortunately, the co-chairs’ proposal makes use of a temporary state budget surplus to justify yet another permanent revenue reduction of $79 million annually. It must also be noted that this $79 million net revenue loss is almost exactly equal to the amount of the net tax cut going to the top 5% of Utahns, those earning over $238,000.

Therefore Voices for Utah Children will continue to advocate for removing from the proposal the part that reduces the statutory income tax rate from 4.95% to 4.59%, since about 60% of any income tax rate reduction goes to the highest income 20% of Utah households. This results from the fact that about 3/5 of all Utah income is earned by the top 1/5 of Utah households, and the state income tax matches the state's income distribution in this regard.

It is hard to avoid noticing the irony that this sector of top-earning Utahns that is benefitting the most from this proposed $79 million overall revenue reduction includes most of the leaders of the Our Schools Now proposal that just two years ago proposed to raise the income tax rate so that high-earning Utahns could contribute more to Utah’s education system. This certainly seemed to indicate at that time that upper-income Utahns were ready, willing, and able to invest more, not less, in Utah’s education system, where enhanced investment in Utah’s children would help lay the foundation for our state’s future prosperity and success. Voices for Utah Children hopes that many of these leading Utahns will speak up in the coming weeks to express their views on this proposed windfall for them that would accomplish the opposite of the goals of Our Schools Now. 

Utah Poverty Advocates Call for Fairer Taxes and Restoration of Public Revenues

Salt Lake City - Today (September 26, 2019) at the Utah State Capitol, a group of two dozen non-profit organizations that provide services to and advocate on behalf of Utah's low- and moderate-income population released a letter to the Tax Restructuring and Equalization Task Force. The letter calls on the Task Force to consider the impact on low-income Utahns as they consider tax changes that could, in the worst case scenario, make Utah's tax structure more regressive and less able to generate the revenues needed to make critically important investments in education, public health, infrastructure, poverty prevention, and other foundations of Utah's future prosperity and success. 

The text of the letter and the list of signatories appears below (and is accessible as a pdf at this link): 

 Open Letter to the Tax Restructuring and Equalization Task Force (TRETF)

Tax Reforms for Low- and Moderate-Income Utahns

September 2019

Dear Senators, Representatives, and Other Members of the TRETF:

We, the undersigned organizations that work with and advocate for low- and moderate-income Utahns, urge you to consider the impact on the most vulnerable Utahns of any tax policy changes that you propose this year.  

We urge you to address the two major challenges facing our tax structure as it impacts lower-income Utahns:

1)     Utah’s current system of taxation is regressive, in the sense that it requires lower-income Utahns to pay a higher share of their incomes to state and local government than it asks of the highest-income Utahns, even though about 100,000 lower-income Utah households are forced into – or deeper into – poverty by their tax burden every year. 

This regressivity could be addressed with tax policy changes including the following: 

1. A Utah Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to allow the working poor to keep more of what they earn.
2. Remove the sales tax entirely from food, as 34 other states have done.
3. Remove the state income tax on Social Security benefits for low- and moderate-income seniors; Utah is one of only 13 states that tax these benefits.
4. Restore the income tax rate to 5% or increase it above that level. (Because the majority of all Utah income is earned by the top quintile of taxpayers, and because the Utah income tax more closely matches Utah’s income distribution than any other tax, most of such an income tax rate increase would be paid by the top-earning 20% of Utahns, while most lower-income Utahns are shielded from income tax rate increases.) 
5. Disclose and evaluate the effectiveness of tax expenditures (revenue lost to the taxing system because of tax deductions, exemptions, credits, and exclusions); Utah’s lack of transparency in this area of taxation earned us a C grade from the Volcker Alliance, a leading evaluator of state budgetary practices founded by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. 

2)     For decades, Utah’s overall level of taxation relative to the state’s economy has been dropping, as illustrated in the chart below from the Utah State Tax Commission:

The unfortunate result is that we are left with a tax structure that fails to generate sufficient revenues to allow our state and local governmental entities to properly meet their responsibilities and fulfill their appropriate role in a number of critical areas, including the following:

1. Education: Utah ranks last nationally for our per-pupil investment in K-12 education. Particular areas of weakness include:

• •  · Teacher turnover rates are higher than the national average. One study found the majority of new teachers leave within seven years.
  •  · Pre-K: Utah ranks 36th for our percent of lower-income 3- and 4-year-olds attending pre-school, private or public. We are also 1 of only 7 states not to have statewide public preschool programs. (The state offers only small-scale programs in a limited number of local school districts.) Yet we know from multiple research sources that every dollar invested in high-quality day care and preschools produces at least a $7 return on that investment in future years. 
  •  · Kindergarten: Only a third of Utah kids participate in full-day kindergarten, less than half the national average, because local school districts can’t afford to offer it. Voices for Utah Children estimates that it would cost at least $75 million to offer full-day K to all Utah kids (not including potential capital costs). 
  •  · According to the January 2019 report of the Utah Afterschool Network, the need for after-school programs exceeds the supply many times over, leaving tens of thousands of children completely unsupervised, meaning they are less likely to do their homework and more likely to engage in unsafe activities.

In addition to these input measures, Utah is also lagging behind in terms of several significant educational outcome measures:

• •  · Our high school graduation rates are lower than national averages for nearly every racial and ethnic category, including our two largest, Whites and Latinos.
  •  · Among Millennials (ages 25-34), our percent of college graduates (BA/BS or higher) lags behind national trends overall and among women.

Moreover, Utah is in the midst of a demographic transformation that is enriching our state immeasurably but also resulting in majority-minority gaps at a scale that is unprecedented in our history. For example, in our education system:

• •  · Our gap between White and Latino high school graduation rates is larger than the national gap. 
  •  · Education Week recently reported that Utah ranks in the worst 10 states for our growing educational achievement gap between haves and have-nots.
  •  · We are beginning to see concentrations of minority poverty that threaten to give rise to the type of segregation and socio-economic isolation that are common in other parts of the country but that Utah has largely avoided until now.

B. Infrastructure: Utah’s investment has fallen behind by billions of dollars. This is another area where the Volcker Alliance ranked Utah in the worst nine states for failing to track and disclose to the public the dollar value of deferred infrastructure replacement costs. In addition. Internet infrastructure is lacking in some rural counties, limiting their integration into Utah’s fast-growing economy.

C. Mental Health and Drug Treatment: Utah was recently ranked last in the nation for our inability to meet the mental health needs of our communities, according to a recent report from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Underfunding of drug treatment and mental health services costs taxpayers more in the long run as prison recidivism rates rise because the needed services are not available. Estimates are that Utah meets only 15% of the need for these vital, life-saving services. 

 D. Affordable housing units fall 41,266 units short of meeting the need for the 64,797 households earning less than $24,600, yet the annual $2.2 million state allocation to the Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund has not changed in over two decades, despite inflation of over 60%. Among extremely low-income renter households, 71% pay more than 50% of their income for housing, which is considered a severe housing burden. This year, the Olene Walker Housing Loan Fund used up most of its annual $14 million budget at its very first meeting of the fiscal year (made up of both state and federal funds). 

E. Health care: Our rates of uninsured children are higher than national averages – and rising – especially among the one-in-six of our children who are Latino. In Utah 35,000 or 5% of White children are uninsured (national rank = 36^th place), compared to 31,000 or 18% of Latino children (rank = 46^th = last place in 2017). 

 F. Disability services: The 2018 annual report from the Utah Department of Human Services’ Division of Services for People with Disabilities reports that the wait list for disability services grew to a record level of 3,000 individuals last year and that the average time on the wait list is 5.7 years. 

 G. Seniors: The official poverty measure undercounts senior poverty because it does not consider the impact of out-of-pocket medical expenses. A 2018 study found that seniors spent $5,503 per person on out-of-pocket medical expenses in 2013, making up 41% of their Social Security income. (For most seniors, Social Security is the majority of their income, and it makes up 90% or more of income for 21% of married couples and about 45% of unmarried seniors.)  

 H. Domestic Violence: Although Utah's overall homicide rate is significantly lower than the national average, domestic-violence-related homicides constitute over 40% of Utah's adult homicides compared to 30% nationally. Several thousand women continue to be turned away annually from crisis shelters because of lack of capacity. Additional state funding would make it possible to substantially increase the capacity of overburdened crisis shelters. We are one of the few states without domestic violence services in every county.

Given the large number of urgent needs that are not being met because of our chronic shortage of public revenues, we are concerned that Utah is missing the opportunity to make critically important upfront investments now that would allow us to reap substantial rewards in the future, and that our most vulnerable neighbors will pay the greatest price as a result.

Thus, we urge you to consider the ways that the state tax structure impacts single parents, disabled adults, low-income children, seniors on fixed incomes, and other vulnerable population groups as you decide on your tax restructuring and equalization proposals.

 Finally, thank you for all the time and effort you are personally investing as volunteer members of this important Task Force, and for all that you do for our state through this and other forms of public service. 

Yours truly,