Leavitt explores funding options for Utah’s future
After doubling its investment in education over the past ten years, Utah is still ranked last out of the 50 states in per-student funding.
Gov. Michael Leavitt addressed this statistic during his annual State of the State address Tuesday night. He said Utah is not only dead last but 40 percent below the national average in funding per student.
Leavitt referenced a report done eight months ago by the leaders of 23 Utah industry groups on the status of education in Utah. He said the report carried a sobering warning.
“Education in Utah has a serious funding crisis,” the governor said. “Think about it, employers in this state independently calling the situation a crisis.”
Leavitt said the thrust of the statement was that the state can’t expect to prosper economically when other states are lapping Utah in education investment.
“It’s clear to me that as long as our demographics stay as they are now, we are never going to approach the national average in per-pupil spending,” he said.
The governor said the state will need a target to find out what is adequate for educational funding.
“At a minimum, over the next six years, we should aspire to both fund increased enrollment and close one-half of the gap between ourselves and the intermountain states, such as Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado,” he said.
Leavitt said it would not be realistic to resolve the funding crisis all at once but proposed some ideas to move in the right direction.
“First, no backsliding. It would be unthinkable, given our relative underinvestment and the 10,000 new students entering our schools and colleges this year, to appropriate less money than last year,” he said. “Some believe tuition tax credits are the solution to paying for increased enrollments.
“They say if we subject public schools to the forces of the marketplace, competition will improve them.”
Leavitt said tuition tax credits are based on a simple idea but create serious risks.
“I’m prepared to participate in a discussion but only when we have adequately funded our public schools,” he said. “Until then, I would create educational choices in a different way.”
The governor also gave praise to Utah’s charter schools.
“Charter schools are working. There are waiting lines to get in, the parents are happy, and they are providing incentives for other public schools to improve,” he said. “We need more of them, and they deserve equal financial footing with other public schools.”
Leavitt also called for the discontinuation of using sales-tax dollars to fund road construction.
“In 1997, to commemorate the state’s 100th year, we created the Centennial Highway Fund, consisting of 41 highway projects,” Leavitt said. “Every project is important and needs to be completed.”
Leavitt said the 2003 Legislature faces very different circumstances, however, with the fifth year of drought, 65,000 unemployed families and the sharpest drop in revenue since World War II.
“This is not 1997, and we cannot approach our highway building as if it were. The excess funds we were spending then no longer exist,” he said.
The governor said the state could slow down road construction and complete projects only as funding is available.
If the state were determined to move ahead on the current construction schedule, he said, new revenues would have to be found.
“It would be wrongheaded to support cuts to education, release prisoners and reduce law enforcement while we continue spending sales-tax dollars on roads,” Leavitt said.
“Putting education first in our budget is good economic policy. That’s our strategy, and it works.”
–str@cc.usu.edu