Utah's school funding motto for years has gone something like this: "We're last in the country, but boy, we sure try hard."

But that kind of statement doesn't hold up anymore.

A report released Thursday by the Utah Foundation says the Beehive State has steadily slipped in its efforts, in terms of personal income, to pay to educate its children, mainly because of tax changes during the economic boom of the mid-1990s.

In fact, Utah right now could be ranked 47th in the country instead of 51st for education spending, and hundreds of millions of dollars better off, had voters and policymakers left the property and income tax structures alone, the report states.

"If Utah exerted the funding effort that existed in 1995, when the state was the fifth-highest in the nation, Utah would have had an additional $1,200 per pupil available in public education revenues in 2004," the report states. "That would have been an increase of $600 million, or 20 percent above the actual funding that year."

The report calls on the state to re-evaluate spending priorities.

The State Office of Education and the Utah Education Association have publicized similar scenarios. The Legislature's budget co-chairman says the foundation report therefore is nothing new.

Still, Rep. Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley, says it may take a crisis to inspire the Legislature to change the way it pays for public schools.

"There does not seem to be a strong movement within the Legislature itself to make any changes," Bigelow said, "but that could easily change."

For instance, $70 million set aside for income tax reform in the upcoming budget remains unspent. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. wants to stabilize school revenues by eliminating most deductions while reducing the tax rate.

But his plan ran into trouble because of a calculation error, and plans to deal with it in a May special session were cancelled. Legislators also aren't all on board. Some are calling for a straight tax cut in light of the $1 billion in additional revenues they had to spend last session.

Public education received $269 million of that extra money.

"We had one of the highest amounts of funding ever committed to (education)," said Mike Mower, Huntsman's deputy chief of staff. "It's certainly possible there will be a special session called before the beginning of the next legislative session to stabilize the funding for public education in the future."

Utah for years has been at the nation's cellar on what it spends per student — the standard measure for education funding across the United States. Demographics don't help. Utah has the nation's highest birthrate and relatively few wage earners to pay for public education.