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Show Utah Policy Makers Will View School Finances Keeping ahead of several State Supreme Court rulings which find some slates in violation vi-olation of the Constitution with regards to the financing f public education, and in order to comply with a mandate-issued mandate-issued by the 1972 Budget Session Ses-sion of the Utah State Legislature; Legis-lature; the Utah Board of Education and the Education Committee of the Utah Legislative Legis-lative Council have called for a statewide conference on public school finance. Approximately 350 persons from different areas of education edu-cation and state government have been invited to the March 30 conference to be held at Cottonwood High-School. High-School. Members of the Utah State Legislature, representatives representa-tives from groups such as the Utah - Education Association, and Utah's 40 school districts will be in attendance. According to Dr. Walter D. Talbot, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the conference con-ference will serve a two-fold purpose. The first objective will be to acquaint conference participants with the results' of a national study recently completed in the area of school finance. The study, entitled National Educational Finance Project, sheds light on different problems prob-lems associated with the financing fin-ancing of equal education in the United Slates. Dr. R. L. Johns, Project Director, will also discuss the study as it relates to Utah's own financing financ-ing formula. The national report is especially espe-cially relevant at this time. The method of financing public pub-lic education has already been found unconstitutional in five different states and is under court scrutiny in 40 others. The court decisions imply that equal education means equal expenditures per pupil on a statewide basis. Even though Utah has one of the nation's most equitable systems sys-tems of public school finance, r ,' some have felt that parts of the Utah formula may not. survive a court test. The 'second purpose of the conference is to initiate Utah's own study . on school finance. , The study was commissioned by the" 1972 Budget ' Session of the Utah State Legislature and will deal with specific problems' and solutions in raising and distributing the $277-million (this figure rep-, resents total expenditures including in-cluding capital outlay for buildings, etc.) spent on elementary ele-mentary and secondary education edu-cation in Utah each year. In light of the recent court . cases, the Utah research pro-' ject will also seek more equitable equi-table methods of distributing funds to Utah's 40 school districts. dis-tricts. The school finance ' conference confer-ence will begin at 9 a.m. with introductory remarks by Superintendent Talbot. |