Fees for vital records like birth and death certificates in Utah are set to increase on July 1st. Approval of a House Appropriations Bill during the Legislative session earlier this year allowed the increase. Janice Houston is the State Registrar and the Director of the Utah Department of Health’s Vital Records and Statistics. She says the department is almost totally funded by fees with only some federal funding provided.
“After 5 years of increasing costs with things like our security paper, that’s the special paper that birth certificates are printed on, costs with that are going up to keep up with security concerns about fraud," Houston says. "And we also have one of the nation’s oldest what we call electronic birth and electronic death registrations systems.”
Houston says they’ll begin updating one of those systems right away. She says Vital Records is also charged with collecting and recording the new $400 Hemp Extract Registry. It allows people with intractable epilepsy to legally use the cannabis oil.
“And in order to carry that in Utah, and be exempt from prosecution under controlled substances laws of the state level, they have to come in and register with us and get a certificate,” says Houston.
The cost of an initial birth certificate goes from $18 to $20 while a copy will cost $25. That’s up from $21. A complete fee schedule and new application forms are available at Health.Utah.Gov/vitalrecords.
