If it wasn’t clear already, Thursday it became official: There will be no attempt to privatize the state’s liquor operations in the 2012 Legislature.

“I think I could have gotten my original idea (of setting up many more packaging agencies) through the House,” said Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden. “But what’s the point in that – there’s also the Senate and governor.”

Instead, said Wilcox, Republicans in the House, Senate and Gov. Gary Herbert’s office will agree on some kind of change to the state’s governing process with the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control.

Two bills will be introduced, one in the Senate, one in the House, and together they will reform alcohol governance, Wilcox told an open House GOP caucus Thursday afternoon.

He declined to get specific. In fact, he held up a thick packet in a brown envelope, saying that “private” document was the latest House alcohol bill.

One source tells UtahPolicy that Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, may ultimately carry the Senate bill.

Between the House and Senate the idea is to increase the current five-member part-time commission to seven members, give the commissioners one full-time staffer who works for them, while the department’s executive director would be term-limited to a certain amount of time in that position, and the executive director would be confirmed by the Senate, as other top administration officials are currently.

Several veteran lawmakers who have dealt with liquor control issues before told UtahPolicy that major changes won’t be happening this session in part because “all the traditional stakeholders” – as one put it – “in liquor control have not been brought together.”

In legislative-speak that means leaders of the LDS Church, who historically have had a say in liquor control in Utah, have not been brought into the discussions – at least not to the extent as in the past.

Thus without that traditional coalition, no major changes will occur.

In any case, it is generally assumed that GOP legislators will in some fashion split up the current liquor control management system – which Wilcox told House Republicans was structurally unworkable.

Half a dozen audits of DABC over the last several years have found not only governance problems, but also charges of fraud and mismanagement.

Last fall Herbert told the former executive director that if he didn’t quit, he would be fired.

It turned out that DABC had been breaking down individual purchasing orders to get them under the monetary level to be reviewed by the five member, part-time DABC board.

Some of those smaller buying orders were going to a company run by the former director’s son. A criminal investigation continues.

But the problems at DABC were bigger than just that.

Wilcox said the current board not only doesn’t have time to run the alcohol department, members were only being told what the executive director and his top aides wanted them to hear – basically keeping important managerial information from the board.

At the basic level, said Wilcox, the DABC was bound to fail since on the one hand it is supposed to sell a lot of liquor to make money for the state, but on the other hand it’s supposed to not sell too much liquor to certain individuals who may violate DUI and other anti-drinking laws.

“At the bare minimum” the 2012 Legislature “will deal with the structural (governance) issue,” said Wilcox.

Those two bills will have nothing to do with other liquor control problems, like not having enough restaurant or bar licenses available to would-be licensees, thus harming the tourism and recreational industries.

Other bills on those issues may rise or fall on their own, GOP leaders said. But DABC governance will be dealt with this session.

The DABC does $300 million in annual revenues.

“It is a big business,” Wilcox told UtahPolicy after the caucus. “But the state doesn’t do a very good job of retail management,” said Wilcox, who in private life has worked more than a decade for Sprint mobile in managing its retail stores.

Democratic legislators some time ago put together a special outside committee to review the liquor problem.

That group last week recommended that state alcohol sales not be privatized.

It said DABC be split in two, one side handling liquor sales and reporting to the governor, the other side handling licensing and other business regulation issues and fall under the current Commerce Department.

Republicans, however, not Democrats, will be handling the reform of DABC.

“We’re getting pretty close,” said Wilcox.

He told UtahPolicy that he doesn’t want to push something which couldn’t get through the Senate or wouldn’t have the approval of Herbert.

“We may continue to talk” about privatizing liquor sales in Utah, but that won’t be dealt with this year, he added.

Said House Majority Leader Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, “We will come together (as GOP lawmakers). We’re making progress. And shortly we’ll come back with real solutions.”