Governor wants to assure rural economy doesn't lag behind Wasatch Front

With the best-performing economy in the state, Utah needs to ensure that economic success is not just confined to the Wasatch Front, according to Gov. Gary Herbert.

With the best-performing economy in the state, Utah needs to ensure that economic success is not just confined to the Wasatch Front, according to Gov. Gary Herbert.

With a statewide unemployment rate hovering around 3 percent and the nation’s third-most-diverse economy, “we are virtually the envy of every other state in this country for the successes we’re having. It’s a remarkable time,” Herbert said during a gathering focused on rural Utah issues at the recent legislative general session. “But I’m also acutely aware that not every place in Utah is sharing that success.”

The governor said rural Utah’s economic growth is at about 2.4 percent, behind the state’s overall 4 percent rate. “And I’m concerned about this inequity. … I won’t rest until we find success in all our 29 counties and all of our 245 cities,” he said.

With 80 percent of Utah’s 3 million residents living in a four-county area, Herbert called for improved technology, infrastructure and education in order to enhance economic opportunities elsewhere.

“It’s a unique metamorphosis that’s taking place in our state,” he said of Utah’s urbanization. “We’ve got to come together and say, ‘What can we do to make sure that everybody has equal access to economic opportunity?’ And that’s not going to be an easy thing to do.”

“You have a lot to offer when it comes to quality of life,” he told the audience of people from rural Utah. “Sometimes the less hustle and bustle, the better. And so I think there are opportunities to have dramatic increases in economic opportunity in rural Utah, and we need to focus on that.”

Herbert said he prefers something other than a top-down approach, opting for a partnership in which rural Utahns “help us get the policy right” and “make sure the policies we create up here [at the Capitol] don’t get in the way of your success.”

Among rural Utah’s benefits to prospective companies and their employees is a good quality of life, he said.

“But having a good quality of life does not include having to export your children. And that means we need to make sure, particularly in rural Utah, that there are job opportunities so they can stay closer to home. If they choose to go somewhere else for life’s experience, so be it — that’s probably a good thing. But the operative word there is that it’s a choice, not that they have to because there are no jobs available.”

Improving education would be one step to creating a more-skilled workforce, something in demand by Utah companies.

“We have hundreds — thousands — of jobs today that if you had the skills, you could go apply for a job and sign up for a good-paying job, and we’ve got to think outside the box of how we marry the opportunities with the skill levels necessary to make sure we have a labor force that the marketplace wants,” Herbert said.

“I think if we do that, we’ll have a great opportunity in our rural parts of the state to have success, and success throughout the state. If our children have to move away, let’s make sure they don’t have to move away too far, and keep them here at home.”

Senate Majority Leader Ralph Okerlund, R-Monroe, echoed Herbert’s call for improved infrastructure to help improve economic opportunities.

“With all of the growth is going to have, we have to focus on infrastructure,” Okerlund said. “For the rural part of the state to be able to flourish, we have to be able to have infrastructure in place. It’s the No. 1 issue, not only on the Wasatch Front for all the growth that they’re going to see here, and not only in Washington County for all the growth you guys are going to see down there, but the rest of the state as well. It’s the key to whether or not our state will be able to continue to be strong and to flourish.”

Among rural Utah infrastructure needs to help lure potential companies are those related to water supplies that would allow them “to be able to do business,” help create more-diverse economies and allow more home-grown young people to remain if they choose, he said.

“We can’t attract businesses to our counties, to our communities, without infrastructure being in place,” he said. “We have companies out there who would like to come, if we have the infrastructure in place.”