PLEASANT GROVE — Alpine District school chiefs have proverbially "dotted the i's and crossed the t's" after realizing they did not technically follow policy when they voted last month on a budget for 2006-07.

The result: an emergency meeting Monday night and a vote for a new budget that's $9 million smaller than the budget presented to the public June 20, cutting mostly from the district's planned capital expenditures.

Both budgets called for a tax-rate reduction, but the budget passed Monday night will further reduce the rate.

District officials hope it will boost chances of the public's approving a proposed bond issuance and increase in the voted leeway.

The June 20 proposed budget, which is now invalid, was for $354 million.

Five of the seven members of the Alpine District Board of Education attended the June 20 meeting, enough people for a quorum, which is required by law to hold the meeting. Three board members voted to approve the $354 million budget.

At the time, school district officials believed they had attained a majority vote with the three people in favor.

But on Monday morning, Alpine Superintendent Vern Henshaw and board president JoDee Sundberg discovered there were too few votes to constitute a majority.

They were reviewing district policies to prepare for a retreat when they stumbled upon Policy No. 9064, approved in 1984 and reviewed in 2003, which states that even if a quorum is present, no measure is approved unless there is a majority vote of the entire board. Alpine's school board has seven members.

"Five is a quorum and four is the votes to carry the will of the board," said district spokeswoman Jerrilyn Mortensen, who added that the board historically had five members until a few years ago, which probably contributed to the mistake.

"It's one of those glitches in memory," she said.

But at the emergency meeting late Monday, all members were present either in person or by telephone, and the budget adopted was $345 million.

The $9 million difference between the budgets could be a savings to property tax owners, but the district warns the public that the Utah County Assessor's Office is revaluing property in some areas and tax bills could actually be higher.

Alpine District's certified tax rate, the totality of various school district taxes, in 2005-06 was .008082.

The certified tax rate in the $345 million budget is .006883.

The savings is $92.32 on a $150,000 house, said Rob Smith, the district's business administrator.

The June 20 budget for $354 million also called for tax rate decrease, but it was smaller and would have required a truth-in-taxation hearing, required in some cases when government entities expand budgets, the superintendent said.

Opponents to the $354 million budget said it would jeopardize a successful bond election. However, proponents of the $354 million budget pointed to a recent survey that indicated residents within the district's boundaries felt comfortable spending more money on education.

The district plans to ask the public in November to approve a $230 million bond issuance and $4 million leeway increase. The district has promised the public that the bonds and leeway will not increase the tax rate above the 2005-2006 certified tax rate.

---

E-mail: lhancock@desnews.com