Salt Lake County's reluctance to vote on whether to allow parts of the unincorporated county to break away and join a new school district is understandable. Too many questions remain unanswered.

Only the Legislature can answer those questions. Either Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., should call a special session before November to settle the differences or, if no consensus exists, lawmakers should temporarily suspend the law allowing district splits until things are made more clear.

Indeed, it is difficult to see how anyone — local governments that have to approve the election or the voters themselves — could cast an informed vote on this matter without knowing how the troubling financial questions it raises will be resolved.

If cities within the Jordan and Granite school districts should vote to break away and form their own districts (five cities already have voted to allow a vote to break from Jordan, and two, plus the county, have yet to decide on a vote to break from Granite), the fast-growing west side of Salt Lake County would be left to bear all the costs of new construction required in coming years. As it now stands, the more established east sides of those districts provide the lion's share of the tax money for that construction.

A new law allowing such breakaway districts allows only the people who would be part of the new school districts to vote in such an election. The folks left behind, who would be left with little choice but to impose a large tax increase, would get no vote.

All sides seem to agree that a solution is needed to equalize the financial burdens. However, a split exists between those who believe the vote should happen first, with faith that lawmakers later will solve everything, and those who would rather solve everything first before holding a vote. Meanwhile, House Speaker Greg Curtis, who favors forming a countywide pool of money to be used as needed by each district, says he doesn't see the need for lawmakers to do anything unless the cities and the county decided to actually go ahead with the election.

The trouble is, lawmakers are the ones who created this mess in the first place by passing a law that didn't take important details into account. Without those details, the public and local governments can't reasonably be expected to know whether to proceed.

We prefer not to have voters decide on potentially damaging matters with the understanding that lawmakers will come along later and fix things. The eventual fix is almost guaranteed not to satisfy everyone.

It's much better to have a solution in place before voters make an informed decision. The governor and the Legislature, not Salt Lake County or the cities, have the burden of acting quickly.