Funding for Economic Clusters Among Utah Governor's Proposals

Building on the state's seven economic clusters identified to grow the economy through targeted investments in emerging industries, Gov. Gary Herbert is asking lawmakers to provide $500,000 in FY12 to plan and identify for additional projects. The Utah Cluster Acceleration Partnership (UCAP) is a collaboration of leaders from industry, state government, higher education, and workforce charged with developing strategies to develop industry-driven education and training services, leverage resources from higher education to accelerate industry clusters, and identify best practices.

So far, three partnerships are underway in the areas of aerospace and defense, energy, and digital media. Additional UCAP's may be established in the areas of health care, life sciences and advanced manufacturing. The governor recommends one-time funding of $500,000 for "development of new technologies within Utah's economic clusters" from the Education Fund within the higher education operating budget.

The state-funded initiative to grow Utah's knowledge-based economy, USTAR, would receive $25.7 million in FY12. USTAR's authorized spending for FY11 is $35.4 million, which included a portion of federal stimulus funds dedicated to the initiative in 2009 (see the March 25, 2009 issue of the Digest).

The 2012 budget proposed by Gov. Herbert projects revenue growth of 5 percent and totals $4.9 billion in general fund and education fund spending, a slight increase over FY11 authorized spending of $4.8 billion. The budget recommendation book is available at: http://governor.utah.gov./budget/Budget/Agency%20Recommendations/FY2012/FY2012_RecBk.pdf