Sophia DiCaro first stepped foot in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget as a 22-year-old intern. She decided to turn down a law school offer and accept the prestigious internship. She could not have imagined that over 20 years later she would return to run that office as its executive director.
When Utah’s newly elected Governor Spencer Cox asked DiCaro to join his administration and lead the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget it came as a surprise. Yet, her extensive career in public administration in the Beehive State and life-long love of public policy has positioned her perfectly for government service.
DiCaro grew up just outside Price, Utah in the sparsely populated town of Wellington. Born to a military-serving father and Japanese immigrant mother, her early life comprised of the rigor of a traditional American West upbringing combined with the advantage of a newcomer’s perspective.
Her parents met while her father was stationed in Japan as a servicemember in the United States Marine Corps then eventually settled down in Carbon County, Utah where her father’s family is from. After returning to Utah, the family subsisted on her father’s coal miner salary as well as the various entrepreneurial family businesses.
DiCaro vividly recalls the house basement full of material for her father’s boom and bust startups and her mother’s seamstress shop which ran successfully for many years. While none of this denotes any out-of-the-ordinary political upbringing, DiCaro’s love of politics and policy seems to originate from a peculiar person – her immigrant mother.
“Even though my mother was from Japan, she loved politics,” DiCaro said. “She could tell you who all of the elected officials were and all of the latest drama and gossip at the time. We grew up watching CNN and Fox News, and we always had the latest Newsweek magazine laying around.”
DiCaro knew she always wanted to do something in law or policy, but the question was how? Her family’s spirited, yet meager financial situation meant she would have to pay for college herself.
Coincidentally, running for a Carbon High School class officer position as a young student enabled her to pursue her dream. Knowing her parents could not pay for her college, she discovered that if she ran for student government, she could get a college scholarship. “I was deathly afraid of public speaking,” DiCaro remembers. “But I decided to just go for it … and ran for student body historian.” DiCaro won and earned a two-year scholarship to the College of Eastern Utah.
Her college studies were ambitious. DiCaro graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Utah and minored in East Asian studies, Japanese, and a certificate in International Relations. After completing a study abroad in her mother’s home country of Japan, DiCaro returned to Utah determined to go to law school and pursue a career in the international arena.
A law school in California offered her a spot, but the Utah Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget also extended a prominent internship opportunity to her. “At the time I was waiting tables at the old Spaghetti Factory, and I thought: well, I should postpone law school and save money and take up the internship since I didn’t know when a chance like that would come up again.”
DiCaro never ended up going to law school but adds that when she made the decision to join the budget office, “I never looked back.”
DiCaro ended up spending the next seven years in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget. The internship turned into a job as a state data center coordinator where she acted as liaison between the U.S. Census Bureau and the State of Utah and helped compile chapters for the annual economic report to the governor.
She was promoted twice in that office, first to serve as a federal assistance management officer responsible for facilitating the state’s federal grant applications. And second, as the lead budget and policy analyst where she analyzed and oversaw the budgets of five state agencies. During this same time, she earned her Master of Public Administration from the University of Utah.
Around the beginning of 2008, Jason Perry was made executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED). He recruited DiCaro to join the team as the finance director.
“I had just got back from maternity leave with my second child, and we got news of the 2008 housing bubble burst,” DiCaro said. Soon after, the office was tasked with “slashing budgets, staff changes, and it was just a nightmare of a time.”
While the downturn in the national economy caused stress for everyone, DiCaro is grateful for the leadership of Perry and the vision of Spencer P. Eccles who soon joined the office. Years later, Perry was asked to become Governor Gary Herbert’s chief of staff and Eccles joined GOED as its executive director.
Eccles asked DiCaro to serve as deputy director and chief operating officer. During the next four years, DiCaro oversaw all departmental operations, had special oversight of the finance staff, and coordinated with legislative committees and partner stakeholders.
DiCaro is especially pleased with the opportunity to help Eccles establish Utah’s World Trade Center in downtown Salt Lake City at City Creek. “He was a great visionary and was great at bringing partners to the table. We were able to make it happen due to his leadership,” she said.
DiCaro is very gracious in attributing success to other people’s efforts but appears to shy away from detailing her own impact. A 2013 Utah Business magazine spotlighted her for her role in helping to set up the World Trade Center of Utah. She facilitated the restructuring of the department and moved GOED offices to the World Trade Center to better showcase the state to visiting ambassadors and other potential investors.
After serving in GOED for six years, DiCaro decided to run for elected office and get a taste of policy making.
“It was a big risk, but I noticed that the representative where I lived only won his last election by a few votes,” DiCaro said. Utah Democratic Representative Larry Wiley won his 2012 election by 77 votes two years previous. “I figured I could swing those votes, plus I needed a break because we were working a ton of hours at GOED to get everything in place.”
Years of serving on the public policy side of government gave DiCaro an advantage, but “the political side was very new to me,” she said. Her whole family pitched in to help pass out pamphlets and knock-on thousands of doors, which had an impact because that legislative district had not been campaigned like that in a long time.
On election night, the numbers had her losing by 33 votes. “I didn’t know it was going to suck like that. It was terrible,” DiCaro exclaimed. That night gave her a lot of empathy for elected officials who put their hearts and souls into their campaigns. But her race was not over.
2014 was the first year that her legislative district had voted by mail. When all the votes had been counted and the election certification had taken place two weeks later, DiCaro was declared the victor by 204 votes.
As the Republican representative for House District 31, DiCaro made her decisions based on conversations and townhalls she had with neighbors all over her West Valley City district. “I loved my service in the legislature, and the ability to effectuate change directly for those I served,” DiCaro said.
Over 60% of the voters in her district were unaffiliated which necessitated her to have many conversations with lots of “independently minded people.”
While serving as a part-time legislator, she enjoyed the time off to spend with family but gradually began to realize that she needed to work full-time again. “It was important for my mental health,” she noted humorously.
At the time, Eccles had started a new investment firm called the Cynosure Group and asked DiCaro to be the chief compliance officer. It was a great opportunity to both serve in public office and get valuable private sector experience. “It was exactly what I needed, and they were very supportive of my public service,” DiCaro said.
But her reelection in 2016 did not go as planned. The opposite happened with votes swinging to her opponent in about the same number as she had won just two years earlier.
DiCaro blames this on several factors; noting, it was a presidential year and state democrats appeared to spend an inordinate amount of time campaigning in her district that affected her race and others.
Although she lost re-election, DiCaro continued to serve by being appointed to the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control board, which she sat on until December of last year. She also saw an opportunity to run for an at-large Salt Lake County council seat in 2018 but ended up losing that election race as well.
At the end of 2020, DiCaro was asked to participate on the Cox/Henderson transition team. She accepted and said she enjoyed lending her voice and ideas to that team.
What she did not expect was an offer to be the executive director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget. She hesitated at first but knew “it is a wonderful opportunity to do something new” and help facilitate the integration of the planning aspect back into the office. “Ok, I said, you had me at planning,” DiCaro said to Governor Cox.
Transforming the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget back to the Office of Planning and Budget
The Cox Administration proposed incorporating state planning back into the governor’s budget office. Earlier this year, the legislature concurred and passed H.R. 368 to make a few changes in the office, among which is a renaming of the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget, as it had been known under both Governors Herbert and Huntsman, to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget.
The name change also marks a slight shift in responsibility and focus. Or as DiCaro says, “a restoration of the planning function back into the office.” In pervious gubernatorial administrations there always was a state office of planning and budget; i.e. when DiCaro was an intern and then subsequently worked there from 2001 to 2008.
Previously the office would collaborate with the U.S. Census Bureau to establish official population statements, etc., but over the years a lot of that responsibility shifted to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, “which has leveraged and expanded it to what it is now, which is amazing,” DiCaro said.
After 2008 and the financial recession, the state was attempting to do more with less at the time and sought to work with others outside of government.
At the same time, the nature of the office changed to concentrate on efficiencies and that has been the focus of the office for the last eight to ten years under the administrations of Huntsman and Herbert as the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget.
“Things evolve and there was a rhyme and a reason for the changes to the office at that time,” DiCaro said. Now things are shifting again, and decision makers feel it is time to put the planning aspect back in the budget office.
“We want to have a more proactive approach to future planning and integrate that more closely into the budget process,” DiCaro said. The state is aware of Utah’s population boom that will take place over the next few decades and it wants to allocate resources appropriately for that future time.
“Now that we have this great asset in the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute with all its resources and great research that we can pull from, we want to integrate that into our budget planning for the future,” DiCaro said. “This will allow the state to be more proactive rather than reactive.”
One major change is the evolution of the planning coordinator’s responsibilities. Rep. Robert Spendlove, R-Sandy, who sponsored H.R. 368, ensured his bill reflected all the changes that had already occurred, and which were just not in code. For example, the budget officer’s planning coordinator and the Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office (PLPCO) were responsible for some of the same things, so that redundancy was eliminated.
“Rep. Spendlove and I actually worked together in the Office of Planning and Budget back in the day, so he understands the path the office has taken over the years,” DiCaro said, “and his legislation enhances those changes.”
Collaborative Statewide Planning
State and local governments are planning extensively but there has been a “void” in coordinating that on a statewide level, DiCaro explained. Now with the changes in the budget office and bringing back the planning aspect the state can expect more robust cooperative plans.
To help integrate these strategic statewide plans into the office, DiCaro has made some high-level hires which she will make public shortly. “The key,” she says, “is making sure state plans and the budget align for the future.”
A lot of planning happens incrementally and so should the budget. DiCaro points to the Unified Transportation Plan and her office’s goal of building it out budgetarily.
Additionally, she would like to see her office put together budgets for other plans like water infrastructure, housing, and other projects that loom with an expensive price tag; a price tag that gets more expensive if you don’t budget for them.
A massive federal funds opportunity
The federal COVID-related funds extended to the state of Utah throughout the pandemic offer an opportunity to get ahead of large future expenditures. DiCaro wants to ensure that we are proactive. If a three-to-five-year plan can be constructed with needs properly identified, then a budget to supply those needs and fuel that plan is important for responsible leadership. It will also be a great resource to the legislature.
DiCaro is quick to recognize the planning work of entities like Envision Utah, Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, the Utah Foundation, and others who have constructed many reports on stakeholder preferences to housing plans, emergency management, and other topical policy areas.
Up till now, there has not been someone at the state level taking that work and doing something with it. DiCaro hopes that her office can help fill that void.
“We want to build a team around all this great stuff that’s out there and build proposed budgets around it,” DiCaro said. “When we get agency requests, we get a two-year window of needs. We want to collect a perspective of longer-term needs as well, so we know what is coming.”
An example DiCaro mentioned is the work of the Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management (DFCM). The agency is tasked with figuring out where best to put state buildings across Utah.
DiCaro says her Office of Planning and Budget could compile population growth patterns and present what the state is doing with telework services to help DFCM determine where to put these state buildings with the best cost benefit analysis in mind.
What the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget accomplished in the first 100 days
The state legislature passed five bills to realign state agencies earlier this year with the Office of Planning and Budget being one of the five. DiCaro is proud to announce that her agency is the first one to complete that realignment. Every spare moment has been focused on assigning staff and ensuring all new hires are in place.
“We are up and running and ready to go” DiCaro said joyously, finishing all changes by the 100-day mark of the new administration.
Additionally, successfully passing the state budget was a great accomplishment for her new office. Working with a new administration to craft a state budget and see it pass the legislature was a “heavy lift,” DiCaro said.
Her office is also in charge of the state’s telework initiative which they have been working on extensively. “It’s going to really shape the way we do government services in the future,” DiCaro said.
Outlook of Future State Budgets
Utah’s red-hot economy, recent influx of federal funds, and a forecast of increased state tax revenue leaves one with a sense of optimistic prudence.
“A lot of our budget in the future is going to be based on these concepts. We want to find where we can make the biggest bang for the buck and not create a structure budget challenge with one time money,” DiCaro said.
The cash flush opportunity will allow for the state to tackle needed infrastructure projects and budget for future expenses without further burdening the taxpayer. However, some of this is to be treated with “caution,” DiCaro said.
The COVID-related federal funds require prudence since it is one-time money. DiCaro also observed that the influx of money in our state’s economy might drive up state sales tax revenue for a time but nothing is certain in the long term.
DiCaro is honored by the trust placed in her to help Utah take advantage of this unique opportunity. But she wants to ensure we do it in a way that does not create structural imbalances in the future.
