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Show HcIibq Funds EiipoctGd To QocgQ -'334-200,509' Operating funds available in the Davis School District next year are expected to total $34,296,509. This represents an increase of $4,664,931 or 15.7 percent from the amount available during the current 1975-76 school year. THIS ESTIMATE is contained in a study of 1976 legislation affecting education recently completed by Utah Foundation, the private research organization. The report points out, however, that these totals to-tals do not include operating funds obtained ob-tained from election leeway levies, Federal grants, special-purpose levies, etc. It is expected that Davis School District will be able to finance an operating program of $835 per weighted pupil unit next year, compared with a program of $751 per weighted pupil unit in 1975-76. ACCORDING' TO the Foundation analysis, more than 70 percent of the increased spending authorized for next year by the 1976 Budget Session will go for education. Approximately 46 percent of the total increase in state expenditures for next year is accounted for by augmented state support of public school operations and 25 percent is the result of increased appropriations for higher education. State aid for local school operations was raised by $27.8 million, or 13.4 percent by the 1976 Budget Session. Altogether, Utah schools next year will have a total operating operat-ing program of $320.2 million, of which $234.8 million will come from state aid and $85.4 million will be from local tax receipts. The Foundation report predicts that public school operating expenditures in Utah will treble over the next ten years and could approach or even exceed $1 billion annually by 1985-86 if present cost trends should continue. The study notes that school enrollments in Utah, which have been more-or-less level during recent years, are once again beginning to rise. BY THE mid-part of the 1980 decade, approximately 15,000 additional students will be entering the Utah school system each year. In addition, the study notes that general fund appropriations for higher education were set at $102,936,000 for the coming year by the 1976 Budget Session. THIS SUM represents an increase of $14.6 million, or 16.5 percent above the adjusted ad-justed level for 1975-76. Included in the final appropriation total for 1976-77 is $1,822,000 in last-minute additions to the amounts allocated for higher education. These additions made by an amendment to the general appropriations act in the final minutes before adjournment of the 1976 Budget Session served to bring the overall appropriation total for higher education close to the level recommended by the State Board of Regents. THE REPORT observed that no change will be made in general resident tuitions at Utah public colleges and universities for next year. Increased tuitions were authorized, however, for nonresident students attending the University of Utah and Utah State University along with a substantial tuition hike for all medical school students. Recently, a Board of Regents study revealed that tuition and fees charged at the Utah institutions of higher education are about average to those charged to resident students in the other Mountain States, but are considerably below the Mountain States average in the case of nonresident students. |
