Reader comments
Go slow on equalization plan

Can't you get it right? There will not be a tax increase unless the people choose to!

In the interest of full disclosure, I live in Sandy.

When the East side was growing the fastest and buidling schools pell-mell, didn't they bear a greater proportionate tax burden than did the less populated West Side?

Why is it that now that the West side is growing fastest... and will be for decades to come... that the East side should pay for schools their kids don't attend? Especially given that the district has been split?

Putting a "hold" on a new district creation until 2012 not only increases the problems within JSD (they need to bond for $800 million more - do you think the "east" side will vote yes to pay even more for nothing?), it gives and "out" to the legislature actually fixing/solving the equalization issue. Equalization for building has been talked about for decades and never solved. With the advent of a new district being created, the impetus is upon the legislature to actually address the issue and get it fixed. Giving them 3-5 more years makes no sense at all - despite what the editorialist thinks.
Without equalization, the remaining JSD will still be in the top 10 in the state in taxable value per student (not "poor" by any measure) and on their way to the largest tax base of any district in the state within a few years. They will be back to the size the JSD is not within 8 years.
Equalization ought to happen, but not at the expense of those kids in the (any) new school district that get vitrually nothing while kids in growth areas get all the attention.

The DNews editorial board will just not let this dead horse go without another good beating.

The equalization being proposed is a sham and has less than a snowball's chance in Dixie of surviving.

Projections show the west side of JSD has the same revenue as several other Utah districts and will surpass the east side revenue within 7 years. The fear-mongering about a tax increase fails to put the tax, the spending or the potential increase in perspective. A) taxes will go up only if the west-side voters agree, which they have not (yet). B) while 27% seems like alot, the increase only applies to the portion of the tax associated with contruction and debt service. Calculating the percentage increase on the whole JSD portion of property tax yields a much smaller percentage. C) it is interesting that the DNews is so against taxes being used to support new development in Sandy yet are so in favor of having Sandy and east-side communities taxes expropriated to fund west-side development.

I guess it all depends on whose bread is getting buttered.

Any further redistribution of money in this State will only add to our problems. One of the fundamental economic truths is that people spend their own money differently than they spend Other People's Money.

It is tough to look at the starter mansions that are the new growth in the south-west part of SLCo and also believe that these families cannot afford to raise taxes for a few years if needed. OR, these parents might decide that using portable classrooms, adopting a year round school schedule, and frequent shifts in school boundaries for the next few years are the right solutions to get over the high growth periods. How long before these large new homes on the west side house mostly empty nesters? 20 years?

It would be bad to allow any area to make these kinds of decisions without having to bear the economic costs of those decisions. We don't need a bunch of very expensive buildings sitting empty in 20 years because it was easy to overbuild using other people's money. Neither is increased STate control that comes with State funding a good thing.