"This is vital, in order to attract teachers to the workplace by enhancing their working conditions, to provide a competitive or comparable learning advantage to students who now compete globally, and to provide learning options for individualized help and acceleration for students," she said in her written response to the audit.

The audit found no malfeasance. But it did find 22 of Utah's 40 school districts don't track the money, because the law doesn't say they must.

"Consequently, for these districts we were unable to independently validate whether (the) funds have been spent either appropriately or inappropriately," the audit states.

However, of eight school districts sampled in the audit, three — Granite, Tooele and Carbon — did track class-size reduction money, and "we validated that (the) funds were appropriately used to fund teachers' salaries and benefits," the audit states. Those districts also were found to invest even more in the program than the state gives them.

The audit recommended lawmakers examine the program for potential changes, including whether to distribute money based on need, adding accounting procedures for the money into the law, and whether to grow the cache at the same rate enrollment rises in kindergarten through eighth grades.

"What we would like is a long-term plan, a long-term commitment to reduce class size," Utah Education Association President Kim Campbell said. "It's one of those meaningful changes that can make a difference in the classroom."

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E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com