Cannon wants to combine trust lands

PLEASANT GROVE — When Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, looks at a map of the state, he sees thousands of ways to generate millions of dollars for Utah schools.

The Beehive State has been dealing with an interesting, and costly, conundrum, Cannon says. While Utah is the youngest, and highest-taxed per-family state in the nation, it also has the dubious distinction of being the state with the lowest per-student expenditure in the country.

His solution? To consolidate Utah's school trust lands — which are currently scattered throughout the state — by swapping them with parcels owned by the federal government. That will provide more opportunities for the land to turn a bigger profit and produce revenue that will benefit Utah children, Cannon said Wednesday at a news conference at Pleasant Grove Junior High School.

Accomplishing that task will require considerable time and effort by passing legislation, but Cannon, who is a senior member of the House Committee on Resources and serves as the chairman of the Western Caucus, is determined to introduce bills proposing consolidation of school trust lands.

"We're now going to push very hard to do a series of trades that will result in significant value for Utah schools and directly help our schoolchildren," Cannon said. "We have huge, huge resources in Utah."

Utah's current trust fund stands at about $500 million. By comparison, New Mexico, which has consolidated trust fund lands, boasts a trust fund of more than $7 billion.

"That's the target that has real meaning," Cannon said.

In Utah, there are 3.5 million acres of school trust lands. At statehood, the federal government checkerboarded Utah's school trust lands across the state, hindering Utah from being able to receive maximum revenue for schools, Cannon said.

The school trust lands make money in much the same way private citizens do — with gas wells, coal mines, grazing and industrial parks, said Margaret Bird of the Utah State Office of Education. Some of the land is leased to ski resorts.

"All of that money is not spent the year it's made," Bird said. "It's an important fact for people to understand. All of the money made from school lands is all saved. The schools are like the rich widow in New York. We live off of the interest and dividends."

The interest and dividends could be much, much higher, Cannon said, if the school trust lands were consolidated.