Posted in Education Politics
I got a surprise call this afternoon from a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune wanting a comment on the Salt Lake County Council's non-action in taking the Granite School District division ballot proposal off of the ballot. I was disappointed, but not as disappointed as I would have been if the Legislature had done their job.
The special session was called to consider a bill to equalize property tax burdens for new school construction in the areas that are growing so fast even the existing school districts can't keep up. Especially in Jordan and Alpine. Instead of passing either of the two bills that addressed the issue, they deferred to a "task force" to study the issue in more detail. Then they substituted a bill that opened the vote district wide rather than only allowing the cities wanting to leave to vote.
In truth however, neither of the bills was the correct solution. I've been preaching for two and a half years now that we need a three pronged solution. First we do need a moderate equalization of school construction funding; second, we need to impose a moderate impact fee on new residential development; and third, we need to better control our growth. Without all three prongs, there isn't a good solution out there.
Ordinarily, I would be the first to champion free enterprise and oppose something like and impact fee or controls on growth. If we had a totally free market economy in housing development, I would take that position. But we don't have a totally free market economy. We have a socialized education system that is subsidized by property taxes. The new schools are not paid for by the people moving into the new houses, they are paid for by the existing taxbase. An impact fee would required at least a portion of the cost be borne by the people causing the need for new schools. Controlling the growth would ensure that we aren't allowing the new developments to cause the taxes for the existing tax base to climb outrageously, while an equalization measure would spread the portion paid by "everyone" out over a larger base. Enacted carefully, the three pronged approach would solve the funding problem without major impact on any one group.
Meanwhile, the legislature overrode Salt Lake County and passed a measure that places the measure on the ballot if the municipal governments representing at least 80% of the population in the area desiring to break away vote for the initiative. All of the cities in JSD's east side have voted to place the JSD split on the ballot, so they will get to vote. But the district wide vote provision will proably be a hurdle too high to clear. There are a lot of people hollering about it not being fair that only the seceding cities got to vote; I wonder if they will now decide to let the seceding cities vote in the west side cities municipal elections or give them a veto over zoning and planning & land use issues. I doubt it. To me the whole issue is a great reason to privatize all education and get government out of the picture.
The Small District Coalition is meeting next Thursday to plan our next move. The ride could get interesting.
Random observations: There was an article in the Deseret News this morning about the special session. I read through the comments. It was amazing how misinformed the commentors were. One commentor acused the Republicans of pushing their agenda. Funny but all but 2 democrats in the senate voted for HB1001s1. Another claimed that the Cottonwood High/Taylorville solution was from the SDC (which is different than the normal allegation that it came from Holladay city) when the truth is that it was the Cottonwood HIgh Community Council President and the Taylorsville Mayor who said that they'd all rather stay in the remaining district, while Murray city told us that their survey data indicated that the folks living in Murray City wanted to go to Murray even if the Cottonwood needed to close. The SDC solution, which I wrote, would have allowed East Millcreek to decide for itself if it wanted to be part of the new district or go to Murray district, and would have allowed CHS to stay open provided the people in its service area could keep enrollments up. They didn't like that idea. The list of goofball ideas in the comments defies belief and is a potent argument for not allowing anyone to vote on a district split. The electorate simply won't educate itself on the issues. My favorite misconception however, has to be the moron that thought Senator Pat(ricia) Jones was male.
