Legislative audits address classroom sizes and trust funds

Two audits, dealing with classroom sizes and school children's trust funds, will be presented Friday in the audit subcommittee of the Legislative Management Committee.

The first audit, dealing with classroom size, examines how data is collected by the Utah State Office of Education. The data include average class size, pupil-teacher ratio and pupil-adult ratio.

Class-size reduction has been an important issue to education leaders for many years. Since fiscal year 1993, the Legislature has appropriated $875 million in class-size reduction funds as a supplement to other education funding. Part of the audit evaluates the effect of this funding on class sizes, the audit states.

The audit recommends the State Office of Education reevaluate and make modifications to the methods it is using to collect data pertaining to classroom sizes.

The second audit, on school children's trust, mainly examines the oversight and procedures of doling out these funds.

In 1999, the Legislature created the School Land Trust Program which is administered by the School Children's Trust Section at the Utah State Office of Education. The interest and dividends earned on the nearly $900 million dollar permanent school fund — equating to $25.3 million in fiscal year 2008 — are distributed to the local school districts for distribution to each school, according to the audit.

Each public school (charter school and district school) has a School Community Council which decides how to spend the funds.

The audit indicates the oversight provided by the State Board of Education to the School Children's Trust Section needs to improve. The audit states: "The Board has recently recognized this need and has delegated to the State Superintendent, through board resolution, the responsibility to represent the Board on school trust issues. The Superintendent needs to review the duties of the Section since some duties and practices are currently not found in Utah Code or Administrative Rule."