School funding elusive

Children crammed into classrooms, teachers stretched too thin and parents wishing Johnny could get more attention in class: The state wants to improve their lives.

Legislators over the next seven months will hammer out plans to get cash to classrooms to help kids learn better.

Again.

"It's been an issue since the Legislature was organized," said Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, and co-chairwoman of the Education Interim Committee examining school funding. "We always need to find ways, appropriate ways, to fund public education."

But observers say lawmakers have had several chances to better fund schools but instead caved to political pressure.

"I really am waiting," said Sarah Meier, president of the Granite Board of Education. "Everything that's been introduced to help long-term funding has never happened."

Utah schools receive the lowest per-student funding and have the largest class sizes in the country. Some teachers, saddled with strict new achievement standards, haven't had a raise in years.

That's even though the state's public education budget has increased 60 percent over the past 10 years, including money to boost teacher pay and shrink class size.

In 2000, a general election year like this one, legislative heavy hitters put their heads together to find new resources for schools. The Funding of Public Education Task Force forwarded six ideas:

Add $10 million to the $28.4 million building fund for tax-poor school districts.

Give more state matching money — worth some $60 million by 2005 — to school districts willing to help themselves by raising property taxes.

Consider letting the state's basic property tax rise with the booming housing market, instead of changing every year to generate the same amount of money.

Give schools money from any new or increased fees on toxic waste disposal.

Assign a property tax loophole study.

Give schools $30.6 million to improve an outdated, crumbling and inadequate textbook supply.

Lawmakers approved the state match for property tax hikes and building aid, but both were cut following the economic nosedive less than a year later.