A legislative audit of Utah’s Permanent Community Impact Funds released in May found that money is being misspent for industry subsidies and economic development instead of for the intended purpose to mitigate social disruption caused by boom-and-bust extractive industry. The funds are collected as royalties on oil, gas and mineral extraction of federal public lands. Since local communities can’t collect property taxes on federal land, this money is supposed to help fund things like parks and recreation, public safety, sewage treatment, street lights and so on. The law does not allow using the money to help private businesses or to make low-interest loans to the private sector.
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