Does Utah need a DOGE?

SALT LAKE CITY — The second Trump administration has brought with it a disruptive focus on government accountability embodied by DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency.

DOGE's team of software engineers, under the direction of Elon Musk, has stormed the halls of federal agencies with the aim of exposing waste, cutting costs and maximizing transparency, all with the help of artificial intelligence.

On Monday, DOGE reported that its efforts have produced a disputed $65 billion in savings, including at least $9.6 billion from canceled contracts, $144 million from terminated leases and millions more from firing several thousand public employees.

"I don't think it's ever bad to open up the hood and look underneath it," Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, said on Thursday. "We've gone a long time without actually doing some scrutiny."

In response to Musk's slash-and-burn budgeting at the federal level, some conservative government watchdogs have suggested Utah could use an extra dose of DOGE, while top state lawmakers have insisted Utah already has its "own version of DOGE" within the lawmaking process.

Does Utah already do DOGE?

In an interview with the Deseret News on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Schultz identified with Musk, having also come from an entrepreneurial background where he became "frustrated" with government inefficiency.

"Government does need to run more like a business in being held accountable," Schultz, R-Hooper, said. "That's the one thing the government doesn't do very well is accountability."

While he thanked Trump for the work DOGE has done, Schultz said the federal initiative could take a lesson from Utah's more "strategic" approach that requires the state to balance its budget every year.

Unlike most states that have a separate ways and means committee, Utah includes each of the Legislature's 104 members on an appropriations subcommittee, ensuring that the budget receives greater scrutiny and that every lawmaker is invested in the budget process, Schultz said.

The state is also unique for requiring each subcommittee to study 20% of its base budget every summer, giving lawmakers the opportunity to question every line of the state's balance sheet over the course of five years.

This process, which forces agencies to justify their existence and provide a backup plan for no federal funds, yielded close to $100 million in savings this legislative session that can be used elsewhere, according to Senate Budget Vice Chair Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has also committed to making the state government do more with less. In his budget recommendation for fiscal year 2026, Cox highlighted that since 2004, Utah's population has increased by 45% but the number of state employees has increased just by 7%.

Schultz cited the record 25 legislative audits conducted last year, on issues ranging from health care to higher education, as further evidence that the state prioritizes efficiency-maximizing reforms.

This latter audit contributed to one of the session's priority bills, which would outline a process for public universities to work with the Utah Board of Higher Education to reallocate millions of dollars from low-performing programs to high-demand majors.

"That's a prime example of Utah being ahead of DOGE," Schultz said. "Our federal government can learn a lot from Utah, including DOGE."

But Utah likely has something to learn from Musk's experiment as well, Schultz said.

Where does Utah fall short?

There are several Utah metrics that may cause those lobbying for more limited government to fret.

Over the last decade, Utah's budget has gone up from less than $18 billion (in inflation-adjusted dollars) to over $28 billion, while its population has increased by around 20%. Since 2000, the budget has more than doubled, even after accounting for inflation, while the population has increased by less than 60%.

In 2022, Utah ranked 40 out of 50 states for state-local tax burdens, according to the Tax Foundation. Despite a record package of income tax cuts over the last four years, the effective tax rate increased from 9.6% to 12.1% over the last decade.

Tax burdens are defined as state and local taxes paid by a state's residents divided by that state's share of net national product. The state does better on the Tax Foundation's tax competitiveness index, where Utah ranks 16th. The foundation says this index "evaluates how well states structure their tax systems..."

In 2015, Utah received a D-, falling in the bottom 40% of states, on measures of transparency and accountability that included public access to information, political financing rules and lobbying disclosure requirements, according to a study conducted by The Center for Public Integrity.

The largest obstacle between Utah and more confidence-inspiring governance is transparency, according to former state Rep. Phil Lyman, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor last year.

While Utah has been recognized for its Compendium of Budget Information tool that tracks how money is allocated, Lyman said it is often difficult for lawmakers, and the public, to track exactly how that money is spent by state agencies.

The solution for tracking taxpayer dollars — including tens of millions of dollars from COVID-19 stimulus packages and for Great Salt Lake grants — could be AI programs, which might eventually allow people to follow funds from the Legislature all the way down to each office invoice.

Top DOGE officials have said that AI will have a prominent place in the initiative's plans to detect waste, identify cuts and replace workers. This has caused some to voice concerns about feeding sensitive government data to AI models.

How can Utah increase transparency?

Utah Taxpayers Association President Billy Hesterman said such a program on a state level would be a "monumental task to accomplish," but he said taxpayers "are entitled" to know exactly how their tax money is spent.

There are programs and offices in every state agency that could be consolidated, closed or modernized, Hesterman said. But Hesterman made clear he doesn't think Utah needs Musk to come down from Washington, D.C., to overhaul state spending.

"I'd be more comfortable with having elected officials who are accountable to the people be the ones that are on a commission like that if there was such a thing," Hesterman said.

The State Auditor's Office has created an interactive dashboard to show exactly how money is spent within Utah's public K-12 education system, but the state is not prepared to provide that kind of granular detail for all spending, according to Kevin Greene, the state director of Americans for Prosperity-Utah.

While the state might not be capable of publishing online where each dollar ends up, the state could easily allow lawmakers to be more involved in executive agency decisions, Greene said.

On Thursday, House lawmakers unanimously approved HB474, Regulatory Oversight Amendments, that would prohibit state agencies from passing rules with a $1,000,000 impact over a five-year period unless the change receives legislative approval.

Americans for Prosperity have pushed for the bill, modeled on Utah Sen. Mike Lee's REINS Act, in 26 states across this country. Utah is already well-run compared to the federal government and most other states but passing this bill would make the state's spending more accessible, Greene said.

"The agencies themselves are not accountable to taxpayers," Greene said. "I think a lot of the times taxpayers wonder, 'Well, where did that money actually go?'"

Related topics