District split: a financial hit

If the east side of Salt Lake County splits its school districts from the west, west-siders can expect property taxes to soar and per-pupil funding to drop.

But the situation would be much more dire in Granite School District, where property taxes would have to climb as high as $323 per $100,000 assessed home valuation to meet the construction demands in the remaining district. In Jordan School District, the disparity would only be a short-term problem until the west side increased in commercial development. Property taxes could increase up to $209 per $300,000 assessed home valuation in the remaining Jordan School District.

At a joint meeting of Alta, Cottonwood Heights, Draper, Midvale, Sandy and Salt Lake County on Tuesday night, city officials were presented with the findings of a school district feasibility study, which analyzed a potential Jordan School District split.

The study confirmed that the west side, with a younger median age and more people per household, will continue to grow as the east side shrinks in school-age population. That means that an east district would have $375,849 taxable value per pupil while the west district would have $207,092 per student — a drop from the $279,154 per student in the intact Jordan district.

But as the west grows in commercial development, that taxable value per student will increase.

"We've identified almost 53,000 acres on the west side that is currently undeveloped," said Jason Burningham of Lew Young Robertson & Burningham, which conducted the study along with Western Demographics and the Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness. "Rooftops lead to commercial development, and commercial development is continuing in that area."

However, Barry Newbold, superintendent of the Jordan School District, does not see the statistics as being that sunny.

"What that really means is you'll have less assessed valuation per student than if we stayed as a district," he said, adding he had not yet fully studied the report. "Over and over again, the study did demonstrate what a great job we're doing with kids. I think people need to stay focused on the reality of education they receive and if it can be enhanced."

Newbold said the matter is "not in our hands since it's something that will be determined by other entities and we'll be in a reactive posture rather than a proactive posture."